


Hear My Voice

by birusabi



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Trust Issues, kind of fix-it for later chapters, there will be a happy ending I promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birusabi/pseuds/birusabi
Summary: [Major Spoilers for all of V3]Kiibo stumbles out of a locker with missing memories and nightmares that he can't begin to explain. Thrust into the midst of a killing game, he must struggle to keep himself - and the people around him - alive for as long as possible. And all the while, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to a boy with purple eyes, whose voice threatens to drown out the one that lingers at the back of his mind.Or, a retelling of the events of DRV3 from Kiibo and Ouma's perspectives. In which there are second chances and things end up just a little bit differently than they did before.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Saihara Shuichi, Chabashira Tenko/Yumeno Himiko, Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito, K1-B0 & Oma Kokichi, K1-B0/Oma Kokichi
Comments: 20
Kudos: 66





	1. Beginnings

###### Day 0  
Time Unknown

“Kiibo?! What’s happening?!”

Saihara’s voice was distant. Too distant. Kiibo could see his lips moving and the panic on his face, but he sounded so far away.

“Kiibo! Get a hold of yourself!” 

Yumeno’s voice echoed around the trial room. It had been a while since Kiibo had heard her scream like that. Not since Chabashira’s death anyway.

“I... I’m sorry. I can barely... control it. Looks like... this is the end.”

His own voice this time, though he barely recognized it. He sounded garbled, like he was underwater. He could feel the outside world dragging him back down, beneath the surface.

“Forgive me. I... could not fight with you until the end.”

Saihara’s eyes were searching him for answers. But Kiibo didn’t know if he had much left to give.

“Your choice is not wrong. The real enemy is... the outside world who is enjoying this... killing game.”

Everything was becoming enveloped in a blanket of static. But for some reason, as his eyes surveyed the faces of his departed classmates, Kiibo was hit with a tinge of regret. Regret for what? Surely, his death would help to end the killing game. His friends who had died could finally rest in peace.

“So please...”

Kiibo’s gaze lingered on one portrait in particular. A red X obscured a grinning face that Kiibo suddenly realized he would never see again.

So that’s what it was.

“Use me t-to...”

Though he had cared for everyone, there was one specific person he had always wanted to save. To understand.

“To change... the... world....”

As Kiibo felt his consciousness slip away, he silently wished for one more chance. A chance to make things right.

And then, with the cries of his classmates drowned in static, Kiibo’s world went dark.

###### Day 1  
Time Unknown

*BANG*

Kiibo’s eyes fluttered open, a loud noise waking him from sleep mode. He was faintly aware of a dull throbbing at the back of his head as he attempted to adjust to the surrounding darkness. 

Darkness?

Any remaining drowsiness vanished from Kiibo’s mind. Why on earth was it so dark? He clearly wasn’t in sleep mode anymore. Perhaps there was a malfunction with his sight? But the professor hadn’t found anything wrong during maintenance. Kiibo brought a hand up to check the area around his eyes.

*clunk*

His arm had barely moved from his side when it smacked against a metal wall. Kiibo could feel his circuits beginning to heat up in alarm. A quick search of his surroundings revealed that there was not one metal wall, but four. A box. He was trapped inside a tall, yet narrow metal box.

Kiibo wouldn’t necessarily call himself claustrophobic. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if claustrophobia was something that he could be programmed with. But nevertheless, panic was quickly starting to set in. How had he even gotten trapped in the first place? The last thing he remembered was entering sleep mode back at the professor’s lab and-

*BANG*

Kiibo froze, his gaze shifting to the wall on his left. Surely he hadn’t imagined that...

*BANG CRASH*

Kiibo shot his hands out, steadying himself as the world began to shake violently. Nope. Definitely not imagining things. Several more crashes and bangs followed. And then, as suddenly as they had started, the noises stopped.

Kiibo cautiously lowered his arms, half expecting the rattling to pick up again. When it didn’t, he let out a sigh of relief. Whatever had caused the racket seemed to have passed, probably taking any danger along with it.

No sooner had this thought crossed Kiibo’s mind when his vision was flooded with light and the ground seemed to give out beneath him.

“Whoa!” 

Kiibo heard someone yelp in surprise as he stumbled forward, unable to regain his balance before his face collided with the floor.

“Uuuugh,” Kiibo groaned, screwing his eyes shut as pain coursed up and down his body. With how things seemed to be going, he’d likely managed to dent something as well. Fantastic. 

Kiibo lay face down on the ground, contemplating the benefits of just going back into sleep mode, when he became aware of something poking against his cheek.

“Hey. Hey. Are you dead? That was a pretty crazy fall, I gotta say. But it’d be lame if you died just from that.”

Kiibo scrunched his face up even more. This was not happening.

“Come on, I know you can hear me. Unless you really are dead. Oh! If you are, can I keep your body? I promise I won’t do anything weird to it. I mean, I probably won’t. It’s not like I’ve had much experience with-”

Kiibo shoved himself upward by the elbows.

“Would you please shut up?!”

A pair of wide purple eyes stared back at him. They blinked once, twice, before Kiibo processed that he was staring someone VERY closely in the face.

Kiibo shot up into a sitting position, scurrying backward until he collided hard with the wall behind him.

“Ow...”

The person sitting in front of him blinked again before a smile spread across their face and they erupted into laughter.

“What the heck?! What kind of reaction was that?!” the stranger cackled, already wiping tears from their eyes.

Kiibo ran a hand down his face, beginning to feel the onset of a very bad headache.

The purple eyes apparently belonged to a short, pale boy sitting cross-legged a small distance from Kiibo. He was dressed in all white, save for a checkerboard-patterned scarf wrapped around his neck. Black hair fell loosely around his ears, the strands bouncing as he snickered.

As he looked past the laughing stranger, Kiibo was finally able to take full stock of their surroundings. They appeared to be in a small classroom, judging by the rows of desks behind them. A glowing board on the front wall cast the room in a faint bluish light. And what Kiibo had first taken to be a metal box turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary locker. Did that mean he had woken up inside the locker? There seemed to be two of them, fitted together. Did the other boy come out of the locker next to his?

Kiibo was shaken from his thoughts by a particularly loud chuckle, and he refocused on the stranger in front of him. 

“I fail to see what is so amusing.”

“You, obviously.” The boy turned his purple gaze toward Kiibo, leaning forward to jab a finger in his face. Kiibo swatted it away.

“Please don’t be ridiculous. For your information, I could have been injured-”

“Whoa! What’s up with all of the weird lights around your neck?”

Kiibo looked down to find the circuits around his neck being prodded at.

“Hey! Be careful with that!” Kiibo shoved the boy off of him, his defenses beginning to rise. But if the purple-eyed menace could sense his annoyance, he showed no sign of it, the grin on his face only growing wider.

“Aw, come on. It’s not like I was gonna break anything,” the boy whined, crawling forward to insert himself back in Kiibo’s personal space. “But you know, if you’re gonna act all secretive, then you HAVE to tell me what’s up with the flashing lights.” He tapped his chin, as if giving this serious consideration. “Do they give you special powers? Your clothes ARE pretty weird. Maybe there’s a jet pack hidden in there somewhere?”

Kiibo screwed his eyes shut again. What was it that the professor said to do in situations like this? Calm breaths. In and out.

A finger poked his cheek.

“What, are you gonna ignore me now? That’s pretty rude, you know.”

Kiibo slowly peeled his eyes open, his gaze filling with purple. Why in the world was this person always so CLOSE?

“If I tell you, will you please stop talking?”

The purple eyes blinked again before the boy finally pulled his face away and raised an eyebrow. “I gueeeess that could be arranged.”

Kiibo sighed. “If you must know, these circuits are a part of my body. As the Ultimate Robot, they are necessary for my functions to-”

“Wait, wait, wait. Back up.”

“What is it?”

“You’re a robot?! For real?!” The strange boy leaned forward again, his eyes blown wide.

“Er, yes? What about it?”

Before Kiibo could process what was happening, he was roughly yanked to his feet, the shorter boy tugging his arm forward to inspect it.

“You’re actually a robot?! You look like a real person! How much did it even cost to make you?! Oh! If I push this will you transform into something cool?”

Kiibo snatched his arm away from the shorter boy’s grasp, backing away a little.

“I am not an object for you to examine! I have a name, you know!”

The other boy tilted his head. “Oh? If you have a name, you should have mentioned it. How was I supposed to know?”

Kiibo frowned. He felt like arguing, but he supposed that was a fair point. “I’m known as K1-B0,” he explained. “Although you may address me as Kiibo. I’m the Ultimate Robot, as you are already aware.”

“Hmm. Kiibo, huh?” The shorter boy tapped his chin again, his eyes still wide. He reminded Kiibo of an overly-curious child. “Still, just because you have a name, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a machine!”

Kiibo was starting to regret having revealed his talent. 

“Those remarks are robophobic!” he grumbled. “I’ll have you know that I am a normal person, the same as you!”

“Oh? But you don’t know anything about me. Isn’t it a bit hasty to assume that I’m some normal person?”

Kiibo paused. “Are you not? You appear to be the same age as me. It seemed like the most logical conclusion.”

The other boy grinned, wagging a finger in Kiibo’s direction. “You’re talking to the one and only Ouma Kokichi, the Ultimate Supreme Leader! You’re lucky that I didn’t have my organization turn you into scrap metal for your ignorance!”

Ouma... Well, at least the purple-eyed menace had a name now. But if what he said was true...

“You... wouldn’t really do something like that, would you? Robot or not, such an action could be considered a serious threat!”

“Nishishi~ Well, that’s fine because I was only kidding.”

Kiibo narrowed his eyes, but Ouma’s expression remained as cheerful as ever.

“So you were lying about being the... leader of some organization?”

"Nope! That part's all true!" Ouma snickered. "Well, no one from my organization is actually here, but they could totally turn you into aluminum strips if they were!”

“Excuse me?! I am the culmination of Professor Idabashi’s robotics work! Not a toy made of such cheap material!”

“In that case, you’ll let me check just to be sure, right?”

Kiibo sputtered, pulling his arm away from Ouma’s hands again. “I most certainly will not!”

Ouma pouted and made a lunge for Kiibo, who quickly fled to the other side of the room, placing a row of desks between the two of them.

“Aw, no fair!” Ouma whined. “You promised that you’d let me inspect you!”

“I made no such promises! Weren’t you the one who said you’d stop talking if I explained things?”

“But that was so obviously a lie!” Ouma replied, a grin reappearing on his face as he scurried around the row of desks. “And you fell for it, so the rules say you have to stand still and let me inspect you!”

“Wha- There is no such rule!” Kiibo backed away toward the wall. Ouma was surprisingly more agile than he had expected.

Ouma hopped over one of the desks in his way. “There is now! Or maybe I just made it up and you weren’t paying attention!”

Kiibo was beginning to fear for both his safety and his sanity. “Either way, please stop! I forbid you from coming any closer to me!”

Ouma’s smile widened. “Aww come on! Just let me touch your body a little bit! I’ve always wanted to be friends with a robot!”

“What? A robot?!”

Kiibo and Ouma both froze. Apparently, they had been too distracted by their bickering to notice that the door had opened and two people had walked in. The one who had just spoken, a blond girl with music-note clips in her hair, looked between Kiibo and Ouma in shock.

Kiibo frowned, his circuits still on overdrive. “W-What is it? Are you another robophobe? I have a recording function. If you make any robophobic remarks, I will see you in court!” 

The girl just stared at him, her eye wide. “You’re a robot? You’re, for reals, a robot?!”

Kiibo stole a glance to the side, making sure that Ouma wasn’t still attempting to chase after him. But the other boy seemed to have taken a keen interest in the newcomers, looking both of them up and down with eager eyes. Which meant Kiibo was safe. For now at least.

Kiibo turned his attention back to the girl, who still had the same shocked expression on her face.

“I am K1-B0, the Ultimate Robot,” he explained. “But please, address me as Kiibo.” He silently wondered if this introduction-making was going to become a trend.

“Ultimate Robot...” the girl mumbled, her gaze turning thoughtful.

All of a sudden, Kiibo found himself being shoved out of the way. “That’s not fair! You can’t be the only one who gets to show off!” Ouma exclaimed, taking Kiibo’s place as the latter stumbled backwards and nearly toppled over. Ouma had been on the opposite side of the room a second ago. How did he even manage to move so quickly? Not that Kiibo was really sure he wanted to know the answer.

The pair, who introduced themselves as Akamatsu Kaede and Saihara Shuichi, listened as Ouma give a long spiel about some secret organization with thousands of members. By the looks on their faces, they seemed to believe the nonsense about as much as Kiibo did. He decided they couldn’t be all that bad.

After some exchanged introductions and thoughts about their situation, Akamatsu and Saihara excused themselves to continue their investigation of the school. They had invited Kiibo along, but he’d declined, not wanting to intrude. There was something about the way the two of them worked together that struck him as bittersweet. Though he couldn’t, for the life of him, place why.

After watching the pair leave, Kiibo turned his attention back to the problem at hand.

“Ouma, if you’re going to insist on annoying me further, could it at least wait until AFTER I make sense of all of this?”

He waited for an answer, but none came. When he looked around the room, he realized that Ouma had disappeared.

Kiibo stared at the empty classroom, confused. Ouma had clearly been standing next to him before Akamatsu and Saihara had left. It was possible that he’d skipped out of the room to follow them, but then again he’d also turned down their earlier invitation. Kiibo was half worried that Ouma was lying in wait somewhere to startle him. But if that was the case, he would have likely acted already.

Sighing, Kiibo sat down at one of the desks and his eyes wandered toward the lockers. Ouma was the first person he had woken up to, and yet Kiibo couldn’t make heads or tails of him. The other boy got on his nerves, that was for sure, and Kiibo was relieved to finally have him out of his personal space. But he couldn’t help feeling like there was something he was missing. Something important.

Kiibo shook the thought from his head. There were too many things to worry about at the moment. That one would just have to wait until later. 

###### Day 1  
Nighttime

_“You can’t escape to the outside world. As long as we have the power of the Exisals, you can’t defy us.” Monokuma’s eyes glinted as he surveyed the group of students on the gym floor below him. “In other words... I hold the power of life and death over each and every one of you!”_

_“You’ve gotta be kidding me! Why would friends kill each other?!” Chabashira cried, her voice echoing feebly off the gym walls. It made the room around them feel larger than it already was. Like any second it could swallow them whole._

_Monokuma tilted his head, an action that should have been endearing but instead sent a chill up Kiibo’s spine. “Friends? Who said you guys are friends?” He paused, letting the words sink in. “You guys aren’t friends at all. You’re enemies out to kill each other!”_

_“I don’t want to be in a killing game.” Saihara spoke this time, his voice seeming louder than it should have been. “It’s wrong. I... I’d never do that.”_

_Monokuma’s laughter washed over them like a wave. “Well, if you don’t want to participate in the killing game, that’s gonna be a problem. Cause the killing game is the only reason you’re here!”_

-

“The only reason we’re here...”

Kiibo groaned, placing his head in his hands and letting the day’s events filter though his memory. Meeting the other students at the academy, the announcement of the killing game, their failed attempts to escape through the underground tunnel... Kiibo wasn’t built to take large amounts of strain, but he was still keenly aware that he’d never felt so sore in his life.

There was a faint rustle in the distance and Kiibo raised his eyes to scan the empty courtyard. Still no one around, as far as he could tell. Not that he expected anyone to be out at this hour anyway. Most of the other students had gone straight to their rooms after the events in the tunnel. Kiibo felt a pang when he remembered the look on Akamatsu’s face, her bubbly demeanor from that morning replaced by a clear expression of defeat.

Several hours had passed since then, and the courtyard was now empty except for Kiibo. He hadn’t meant to be out so late, but after lying awake and staring at his bedroom ceiling, he’d decided that the night air might do him some good. Though in the end, he’d just wound up sitting on the benches at the far side of the courtyard, watching as the flowers of the wooden arbor swayed gently above him.

It would have been nice if Kiibo could fall asleep naturally like the others. He wasn’t in need of charging, even after everything that had happened during the day. And something was stopping him from simply switching into sleep mode. Maybe it felt like he was running away. Turning off a world that he had no desire to be in. Even if staying awake offered no better alternatives.

Kiibo slapped his hands against his cheeks. This couldn’t be happening. It was insane. Like something out of the world’s most horrible fairy tale. Or nightmares that were only supposed to happen after a long day of inspections and... He slapped his face again.

“You know, if you keep doing that, your face is gonna be red forever.”

Kiibo screamed, falling from his perch on the bench and smacking his head on the concrete below. This was immediately accompanied by a shout and a loud thud that should have been too close for comfort. That is, if Kiibo hadn’t been too busy hissing in pain to pay much attention to it.

Kiibo remained face up on the ground for what felt like ages, eyes screwed shut and hands clutching the back of his head. He let out a shaky breath when the the ringing in his brain finally subsided. Though what remained was an odd feeling of deja vu...

“I’m beginning to think that this is how robots normally greet people. Or maybe I’m just special.”

“GAH!”

Kiibo bolted upright and smacked his forehead into something, or someone, else. Said someone responded with a weary groan.

“Ugh... As much as I appreciate your stunning reactions, you really gotta stop doing that. One of us is gonna end up with a concussion, and it’s probably gonna be me.”

Kiibo forced his eyes open and his vision filled with deep purple. Ah.

“Judging from the look on your face, I take it you’re not too happy to see me.”

“What do you want, Ouma?”

“Aw, don’t be like that. I just wanted to check up on my favorite robot, that’s all.”

Ouma was hovering directly above him, an amused smile across his lips, though it was a little hard to tell with just how CLOSE he seemed to insist on being. Kiibo could barely make out a haze of lilac flowers above them, framing Ouma’s dark hair against the night sky.

Kiibo coughed, hoping that his staring wasn’t going to become a habit, and Ouma shuffled backwards, allowing him room to sit up.

“You do realize that it’s nearly three in the morning, yes?”

Ouma wagged a finger at him. “So? It’s never too late to pay a visit to a friend.” 

“I hardly think we know each other well enough for you to call me a friend.”

“You don’t think I’m your friend?” Ouma sniffed, an exaggerated expression of shock on his face. “Even after everything we’ve been though?”

Kiibo frowned. “Well, I don’t exactly think we-”

“How mean! No one wants to be friends with me, and now I’ve even been rejected by a robot!” Tears had already begun to well in Ouma’s eyes. Kiibo still hadn’t figured out how he managed to do that.

“I... I didn’t say that exactly-”

“So does that make us enemies then?”

Kiibo froze as Ouma’s tears were replaced by a blank expression that didn’t seem to fit the other boy at all. Monokuma’s previous words rang crystal clear in Kiibo’s memory. 

He was vaguely aware of how close they were sitting. And the fact that he should have been afraid but wasn’t.

He took a deep breath. “You’re not my enemy, Ouma.”

Ouma blinked without responding, the silence dragging on until Kiibo began to worry that he had broken something fragile between them. But then a smile appeared on Ouma’s face.

“Nishishi~ You’re so serious, Kiiboy! You had me going for a second there!”

Kiibo gawked as the other boy cackled at him, casually leaning back against the bench but refusing to get up from the ground.

“Y...You...” Kiibo stumbled for words.

“Me?”

“You... Why would you...”

“What? Did you think I was here to kill you-”

“No!”

It was Ouma’s turn to stare, the cocky smile dropping from his face.

Kiibo jabbed an accusing finger at him, words finally forming correctly in his head. “Why did you just start laughing?! I thought you were being serious!”

“Oh? Then you still have a lot to learn about human behavior, Kiiboy.” Ouma pointedly turned his face away.

“You of all people have no place to tell me that,” Kiibo grumbled. “You are by far the most confusing person here!”

“Maybe I like it that way,” Ouma said with a shrug. “It keeps people guessing, ya know.”

“Is that really the best attitude to adopt in a situation like this? There is enough tension in this group as it is without-”

“Without me making it worse?”

Kiibo frowned. Ouma was still looking somewhere off in the distance. Kiibo didn’t think there was anything particularly interesting to look at, other than the huge wall that surrounded them. He decided not to question it.

“As I was saying, there is already enough tension without you potentially endangering yourself more than necessary.”

Ouma finally turned back around, the expression on his face unreadable. He didn’t give Kiibo much time to think about it though, as it was immediately replaced by a cheeky grin.

“Aww, is Kiiboy actually worried about me? How sweet.”

“Of course I’m worried. It would be... saddening if any one of us was to die.”

“So robots can actually feel sadness, huh? I guess you’re not such a mindless bucket of bolts after all!”

Kiibo sputtered as Ouma launched into snickering again. “That’s... Ouma, I was being serious!”

“You’re way too serious, if you ask me.”

“You-”

“But ya know,” Ouma got up from the ground, lightly dusting off his pants. “If you keep being so trusting with people like me, it’s gonna come back to bite you.”

Kiibo stared up at the other boy from his seat on the ground. Despite the angle from which Kiibo was looking at him, Ouma seemed surprisingly small, his back silhouetted by the wide expanse of the night sky.

“I... wouldn’t say that I trust you,” Kiibo finally replied, struggling to find the correct words. “Not particularly. However, I don’t yet have a reason to distrust you either.”

Ouma was silent for so long that Kiibo began to worry the other boy hadn’t heard him. But then he heard a small chuckle.

“You really are weird.”

“What-”

“See you tomorrow, Kiiboy! Don’t oversleep!”

“Don’t call me that!”

Ouma laughed again, waving as he made his way back to the dorms. When he was gone, Kiibo sighed and let his head fall against the bench behind him with a thud.

“What the heck was that all about?” he asked, as if expecting the lilac flowers above him to respond. He felt like he understood Ouma even less than he had that morning. As if everything about the so-called killing game wasn’t enough to worry about. But still... he got the odd sense that the tension he’d been carrying from the day’s events had vanished. Was that Ouma’s doing? Or something else?

The flowers gave him no answers.

###### Day 2  
Time Unknown

_“Why are you doing this?”_

_Ouma’s vision blurred, the entire world stained a hazy green save for a single, brilliant splotch of red._

_“I don’t understand... anything... you’re saying...”_

_Pain laced up and down his arm, so bad it made his head spin. He tried to make it go away and his hand touched something warm and sticky._

_“You already know... it’s all meaningless...”_

_Blood. There was blood running down his arm._

_“Do you really... love killing that much?”_

_It hurt. Everything was green and red and blurry and he felt sick._

_“You asshole!”_

_He was going to die._

-

Ouma bolted upright, gasping for air as he attempted to take in his surroundings. A small room with black and white walls. A bed with red sheets that he’d been holding in a death grip. An obnoxiously large monitor in the far corner, which had apparently finished some kind of announcement, as it had just clicked off. 

Announcement. The school. The killing game. It all came rushing back in a huge, smothering wave. Ouma pulled his legs up to his chest and pressed his forehead against his knees. It was real. Every last bit of it.

It took several minutes of deep breathing for Ouma to return his pulse to a relatively normal level. He wasn’t quite sure why he was so shaken up, other than the obvious. Was it a bad dream? He couldn’t quite remember what had happened in it. 

Sighing, he swung his feet over the side of the bed. There was no sense dwelling on it. Sure, maybe everything seemed hopeless at the moment. But if there was anything Ouma was good at, it was finding his way out of hopeless situations.

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Ouma began to rummage through the closet on the opposite side of his room. He quickly found that it contained several copies of his black and white outfit, each complete with a checkerboard scarf. He made a face. Whoever set this whole thing up had absolutely no appreciation for variance. Not that he disliked his outfit. He’d specifically picked it out himself. But there was something about seeing twenty or so exact copies of his clothing that felt... odd.

“It’s like we’re dolls,” he mumbled bitterly. That’s exactly what it was. Although, it wasn’t like twenty of the same outfit would last them forever. Was there even a place to do laundry around here? Or maybe they weren’t even supposed to last that long. 

Ouma closed the door with a heavy thud.

After digging around in his room and finding nothing remotely useful (save for a toothbrush, a notepad, and a couple of permanent markers, but he had doubts that they’d be of much use), Ouma plopped back down on his bed with a yawn. It took him less than a second to remember why he was so tired.

Ouma gingerly touched the spot on his forehead where Kiibo had headbutted him the night before. He wondered if it would bruise. When he was younger, people used to tell him that he had a thick skull, though he wasn’t sure if they meant it figuratively or literally. At least if it did bruise, it would be one more thing that he could bother the robot about.

There was something intriguing about Kiibo that Ouma couldn’t quite place. Other than the obvious fact that he was a robot. Not that Kiibo being a robot WASN’T interesting. But there was something else that made Ouma want to keep going back to mess with him. The others definitely gave him reactions whenever he tried to press their buttons. Watching Momota get all defensive about his pride was borderline hilarious. And he could already tell that Akamatsu held huge potential as a leader, if perhaps she could be pushed in just the right ways. Amami and Saihara stood out for their own reasons as well. And yet he still couldn’t place what exactly drew him to Kiibo.

Ouma smiled as he opened his door to head for the dining hall. Maybe there were things to look forward to in this place after all.

###### Day 2  
Morning

“But you know, if there’s no final boss, that means the killing game has been canceled!”

Ouma surveyed the faces of his classmates. A moment ago, they’d all been in shock, both from the sudden motive reveal and Monokuma’s supposed “death.” But as they each took in what he had just said, a mixture of hope, doubt, and confusion began to cross their faces. Perfect.

“I don’t think so,” Amami’s voice cut through the silence. “Monokuma’s just a robot. There has to be someone controlling him.”

Ouma spun on his heel to face his classmate. Amami, the man of mystery. Always hiding behind a layer of caution, yet one of the least likely to ever lose his cool. Ouma was beginning to like him more and more.

“Don’t be such a worrywart!” he quipped. “Everything’s definitely over now. After all, with the mastermind gone, this killing game is pretty much impossible.”

Amami’s gaze searched him, but he didn’t question any further. Not that Ouma intended to give him an explanation. Not yet at least.

Most of the others, however, seemed to cling to Ouma’s words like a lifeline.

“So... we’re not in danger anymore?” Chabashira asked, anxiously glancing around the room.

Shirogane shook her head. “Do we just wait for the shuttle bus to pick us up, or...?” Ouma couldn’t decide if she was really that dumb or if she had just gotten good at covering her nerves.

These types of reactions were to be expected, of course, especially given the situation they were in. And on one hand, Ouma knew that feeding the group blind hope could be dangerous. But on the other...

“Wait a minute! We don’t know that yet!”

Bingo.

Ouma turned to face Akamatsu, his lips forming into a pout. “Quit being a buzzkill, Akamatsu! Everyone’s still upset about what you did yesterday!”

The shock on Akamatsu’s face was as clear as day. “But I didn’t mean it like that-”

“Don’t tell me you wanna take on the underground passage again?!” Iruma’s voice was shrill, hiding her obvious apprehension. Ouma made a mental note to deal with her later.

“Quiet. We know it’s impossible,” Harukawa added. Ouma wasn’t exactly thrilled that she was agreeing with him. But he supposed he couldn’t be picky at the moment. Whatever got the job done.

“Sorry...” Akamatsu hugged her arms against her body. A habit that she apparently did whenever she was unsure or hurt. Ouma noticed that she’d been doing it more ever since the tunnel the night before.

Ouma formed his expression into a smile. “Well, whatever. It looks like we’re done here. What a relief!” He looked from Akamatsu to Saihara, both of their faces downcast. Neither of them said a word. The others fidgeted in their seats, the hopeful atmosphere of a moment ago dissolving into an awkward silence. Even Kiibo, who had challenged Ouma’s words towards Akamatsu earlier that morning, seemed unsure of what to say. Though Ouma couldn’t entirely blame him. Or any of them, for that matter. Not with the way that he’d set things up.

And just like that, the group went their separate ways, tension hanging in the air even after they’d all left the dining hall. Only Ouma lingered behind, his fingers lightly drumming out a melody on the dining room table. 

They were easy. Almost embarrassingly so. And ever so slowly, Ouma was beginning to form his strategy towards each of them. Of course, things were up in the air now, with Monokuma supposedly being “dead.” But Ouma was sure that the annoying bear would be back before they got a chance to miss him. How they were supposed to get out of here, he wasn’t quite sure about yet. But he figured that with time, and maybe a bit of extra prodding on his part, they were bound to come up with a solution.

###### Day 2  
Afternoon

The storage room across from the dining hall held just about everything that one could desire. And yet, to Ouma, it also seemed to hold a whole lot of nothing. Letting out a sigh, he placed a can of “Monokuma’s Baked Beans” back on a shelf next to a gaudy looking lampshade. The variety of knickknacks might be useful if someone was planning the world’s worst science fair. But when it came to things that could actually help them escape, he’d pretty much come up empty.

Ouma was still staring forlornly at the can of beans when he heard the storage room door open and close behind him. It didn’t take long for him to figure out who the visitor was.

“That was a pretty good show you put on this morning.”

Ouma spun around, flashing the person a convincing smile. “My dear Amami, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Amami just frowned at him. “We both know you’re not that dumb, Ouma. Just what are you playing at?”

Ouma shrugged, going back to his investigation of the shelf in front of him. He picked up a box of something blue and goopy before quickly putting it back. “Is it so wrong for me to be excited that Monokuma’s gone?”

“That doesn’t mean the mastermind-”

“Oh, I know. The real mastermind’s still hiding somewhere. Haven’t quite figured out where though.”

Amami paused. “So you were bluffing.”

“I AM a liar," Ouma pointed out. "You should know better by now.”

Amami seemed to consider this before shaking his head and walking over to thumb through the items on a different shelf. “You’re a really strange guy, you know that?”

“Should I take that as a compliment?”

“Only if you’ll explain what you’re up to.”

Ouma wagged a finger at him. “Do you really think you’re trustworthy enough for me to spill my secrets? You haven’t even bought me dinner yet.”

Amami raised an eyebrow. “Dinner with you sounds like a disaster."

“Come on, we’ve eaten together, what, once now?”

“You gonna ask me out after the first date?”

Ouma put a hand to his chest in mock disbelief. “I would never!” He grinned. “Take me on a second date and I’d consider it.”

Amami let out a chuckle. “Not on your life.”

“I take offense to that,” Ouma replied, leaning against the shelves with one hand on his hip. “You’re just afraid you couldn’t handle me.”

“Honestly, I don’t think there’s a person alive who could handle you.”

“You’ve known me for like a day!”

“My statement still stands.”

Ouma pouted, turning back to his shelf. It was odd. He hadn’t exactly expected Amami to be angry with him. The guy was too easy-going to be seriously upset. But he certainly hadn’t expected conversation with him to be quite this... easy. Perhaps there were still things about the mystery man that he hadn’t figured out.

Amami made a face as he pulled out a cup with pictures the Monokubs plastered all over it.

Ouma suppressed a laugh as curiosity got the better of him. “What are you looking for anyway?”

Amami sighed, placing the cup back where it belonged. “Rhinestones.”

It was Ouma’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I didn’t take you for the glitzy type, Amami. Maybe I really should ask you to take me out to dinner.”

Amami gave him an unimpressed look before going back to the shelf. “They’re not for me. I wanted to give them to Akamatsu.”

“Oooh. Glitzy AND forward. You’re just full of surprises.”

Amami shrugged. “Stuff like this lets people take their minds off things. Whatever helps, you know?”

Ouma frowned, the shelf next to him thoroughly forgotten. If Amami noticed him staring, he didn’t seem to mind.

“I don’t think anyone really believes we’re getting out of here so easily,” Amami continued. “Not anytime soon at least.”

“I dunno. Some of the people here seem pretty dumb to me.”

“And you still went out of your way to give them something to look forward to. Or maybe you were hoping they’d fight back a little harder?” 

Ouma huffed, turning his gaze toward the opposite wall. “You’re pretty dumb yourself if you think that’s what I was doing.”

“Nah, not entirely,” Amami responded, his voice calm. “You wouldn’t have singled out Akamatsu if that’s all you were after.”

“Hm, so is that what your rhinestones are about? Trying to brighten her spirits?”

“Not particularly. It’s just something that came to mind.”

Amami apparently didn’t see a need to clarify any further. And Ouma didn’t really feel like pressing him about it. The two fell into a steady silence, save for small shuffles here and there as Amami occasionally picked up an item and then quickly put it back. Ouma wouldn’t describe it as an awkward silence, yet it wasn’t exactly comfortable either. It was like they had an unspoken agreement about something that neither wanted to acknowledge out loud.

“The mastermind might still be alive. But that doesn’t mean this game can’t end.”

The shuffling stopped as Amami turned to look at him. “You mean if one of us kills someone?”

“You can take it that way if you want.”

Amami paused, seeming to mull over his words. “You sure it’s safe to think that way?”

“Who knows? It might have been another lie.”

“Just like what you said this morning?”

Ouma shrugged. “Someone’s gotta do it. It’d be pretty boring if everyone just stood around and never said what they were thinking.”

“Even if that sets the group apart?”

Ouma finally turned around to face his warehouse companion. “Did it really?”

Amami’s gaze searched him, but Ouma refused to budge. After a moment, Amami shook his head. “You’re heading down a dangerous path, you know that, right?”

Perhaps Amami was right. He most likely was, if Ouma was being honest. But at the moment, there were a few things he considered more important than the potential risk of his actions. He flashed Amami a reassuring smile and placed his hands behind his head. “I don’t think I’ve got much to worry about. Akamatsu’s really more of the protagonist type, don’t you think?”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” 

“Do I? That might be a lie too, after all.”

There was a pause before Amami let out a chuckle. “It’s always lies with you, huh?”

Ouma felt a smile, a real one this time, tug at his lips. “They’re pretty much ingrained in my bloodstream at this point.”

“That actually sounds like disease.”

“It’s all part of what makes me so charming.”

Amami shook his head. “Guess I’ll have to give up on that front then.”

“Please,” Ouma chuckled. “You’re like the most charming person here.”

“Even more than you?”

“Ok, that’s debatable.”

Amami laughed, and unwillingly, Ouma felt his own smile growing wider. There was something oddly familiar about their interactions. They’d never talked much before, no more than they’d probably talked to most of the others. Heck, Ouma still wasn’t sure if he could trust Amami yet. But he realized that he wouldn’t mind having someone to chat with to like this. Amami was right. It did take his mind off things.

Ouma tossed a bag of sparkly stones at Amami, who caught them without batting an eye.

“Whatever you’re gonna make out of those, you’d better save one for me.”

“Only if you plan on having sparkly fingernails for the next few days.”

So that’s what it was. Ouma grinned. “The one and only Amami Rantaro is gonna give me a manicure? That’s even better than you buying me dinner.”

Amami shook his head, still smiling. “Do you actually want me to do your nails?”

“Do you want the truth or a lie?”

“I’m just gonna take that as a yes.”

Ouma snickered, turning back his previous shelf-investigation. He pulled out a box of oddly shaped candies and frowned.

“You know, if you’re looking for something to help with the whole ‘this killing game can still end’ thing, maybe you should start by writing things down?”

Ouma gave Amami the most disappointed face he could muster. “You’re talking about massive, life-changing plans here. You can’t expect me to contain all of my ideas in some pathetic excuse for a notebook.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a giant whiteboard,” Amami countered, not skipping a beat.

Ouma turned his gaze toward the back of the warehouse, where Amami was pointing. Hidden behind a large pile of mats was a beautifully unused whiteboard. Perfect.

“You, my dear mystery man, are a genius.”

Amami laughed. “I’m not even gonna ask if that was a lie or not.”

Ouma flashed him a grin before darting to the back of the warehouse, already trying to figure out how he’d get the thing into his room without people asking questions. Not that he couldn’t come up with something if they did.

Behind him, he heard the warehouse door open with a click, followed by a pause.

“Hey... Ouma?”

Ouma turned around, his hands already full of whiteboard markers. “Hm?”

There was a strange look on Amami’s face, as if he was trying to decide if he should say something or not. It made Ouma apprehensive. 

After a moment of silence, Amami just shook his head. “Nah, it’s nothing. Just... don’t go dying on me, kay?”

Something twisted in Ouma’s stomach. He wasn’t quite sure what the feeling was, but he did know that he wanted it gone. He forced a smile onto his face. “Don’t worry. It’s gonna take a lot to get rid of me.”

Amami just smiled before closing the door behind him.

The strange feeling stayed with Ouma for the rest of the day.

###### Day 4  
Evening

Ouma had tried everything. For the past two days, he’d searched the entire school from top to bottom. Everywhere he knew of at least. 

Even after Monokuma was “resurrected,” just as Ouma figured he would be. Even after it was revealed that their lives were tied to a time limit. Even after Hoshi had to be convinced out of sacrificing himself to save them. Ouma kept searching for answers.

He’d spent several hours turning the warehouse inside out, with little to show for his efforts other than some cardboard boxes piled in the corner of his bedroom. He’d tailed Saihara around early one morning. After all, if anyone could pick up on some hidden secret of the school, it was him. But the detective had run off to spend time with Akamatsu, and something about seeing the two of them together made Ouma feel nervous. He’d even gone back to the underground tunnel, to see if there was some trick that he could discover on his own. But he’d just ended up back at the entrance with several bruises on his arms and legs.

In the end, he’d come up empty handed.

And now, as the final day of the time limit drew to a close, Ouma was coming to the conclusion that it was impossible. They were trapped with no way out. No way to contact the outside. And no way to stop the inevitable.

Ouma shuffled through the mess of papers on his bed, full of sketches that he’d done of the school, detailing every room, pathway, and item that could possibly have been of use. He pushed them aside and pulled his knees up to his chest.

Was this really how it was going to end? He’d never counted on Momota’s bravado, but even Amami and Akamatsu, for all of their confidence, hadn’t seemed able to do anything. And what about him? Wasn’t he the one who said the killing game could still end? For once in his life, that hadn’t been a lie. At least, he thought it hadn’t. But here he was, curled up on his bed, waiting as the minutes ticked down to 10 pm. 

Ouma curled his fingers tighter around his legs. Something about this didn’t feel right. When Monokuma had first announced the killing game, it had seemed complicated. Like someone had put way too much thought into every little rule and detail. But after all of that effort, they were simply supposed to die here? Just like that? It seemed anticlimactic. But then again, why did it even need to be climactic in the first place? Ouma wasn’t sure. And that in itself made him uneasy.

Irritated, Ouma pressed his forehead against his knees and closed his eyes. Why did it matter anyway? 

If he’d known things were going to end like this, he would have enjoyed himself a little more, instead of wasting his time searching for some unknown exit that didn’t even exist. Though he supposed that if he got thrown back in time and had to do it all over again, he’d just end up looking for a solution all the same. It’d be a little too hard to resist trying, whether success or failure waited for him in the end.

But right now, all there was left to do was wait. 

Five minutes left.

Then four.

Then three.

Two.

One.

Zero.

But the end never came.

When the silence became too much to bear, Ouma looked up and checked the time on his Monopad. It was three minutes past 10 pm. Where was the hoard of Monokumas? He’d assumed that everything would happen all of a sudden. Were they going to kill them one by one? Had they just not gotten to him yet?

Ouma stared at his Monopad in silence for another minute.

And then the monitor in the corner of his room flickered on.

  
***ding dong, ding dong*  
“A body has been discovered! Everyone, please gather in the library!”**  


Ouma’s blood ran cold. 

A body? Now? But they were all supposed to be dying. Not... not whatever this was.

Slowly, as if he was caught in a trance, Ouma got up from his place on the bed. He had to do this, whether he liked it or not. He tugged on his shoes and tied his scarf around his neck. He couldn’t afford to freak out now. Not when everything was just beginning. 

By the time he got to the door, he’d convinced himself that everything was going to be ok.

And then the second he stepped outside, he was greeted by a startled voice.

“Wha- Ouma?!”

Ouma had been so caught up in controlling his thoughts that it took him a moment to realize someone was gripping his shoulders.

“You’re alive! Thank goodness! Did you hear the announcement- Of course you did. You wouldn’t be here other-” The voice paused. “Ouma? Are you alright?”

Ouma shook his head, finally focusing on the person in front of him.

“Kiibo?”

The robot nodded slowly. “Yes, it’s me,” he replied. “Is something wrong? You seem... paler than usual.”

“Why are you here?”

Confusion crossed Kiibo’s face. “I was in my room, waiting for the time limit. And then I heard the announcement just now-” His eyes widened. “Ah! The announcement! We need to get to the library! Quickly!”

Ouma watched as Kiibo let go of his shoulders and hurried toward the stairs. Halfway down, he stopped, obviously realizing that Ouma hadn’t followed him. He turned around, concern clear on his face, and made his way back to where Ouma was standing. 

“Can you not walk? I... I do not posses much physical strength, so I do not think it would be wise for me to carry you. Though I will try if I must.”

Ouma stared at him, his thoughts finally catching up.

“What? No. I... I’m fine.”

Kiibo didn’t look convinced. “Are you lying again? You do not look-”

“Kiibo, I said I’m fine!”

Ouma didn’t even realize that he had shouted until he saw Kiibo flinch.

“I...” Kiibo looked at Ouma and then down at his hands. “If you say so. Forgive me for insisting.”

Kiibo turned and made his way back down the stairs. For a brief moment, Ouma was struck with a need to call out to him, to tell him to wait. But when he tried, his voice caught in his throat and all that came out was silence.

Kiibo looked back at him when he reached the front door. “Er, make sure you hurry. I do not know what Monokuma will do if any of us are absent from the library... Um. That’s all.” After an awkward pause, he hurried outside, closing the door behind him with a thud.

It was going to be ok. Everything was going to be ok.

Ouma forced himself to run to the library.

-

_“Hey... Ouma?”_

_“Hm?”_

_“Nah, it’s nothing. Just... don’t go dying on me, kay?”_

-

When Ouma got to the library, his entire world ground to a halt.

It took him a moment to realize it. After shoving his way past his stricken classmates, his eyes followed the splatter on the bookshelf down to the body below. Down to the familiar mop of green hair, matted with blood.

Amami.

Amami was dead.

“What...? This is a lie, right?”

His voice was drowned out by the cries of his classmates. He thought he heard Akamatsu reply to him, but he was having a hard time focusing on anything other than Amami’s body, so he couldn’t be sure.

It was going to be ok. 

Everything was going to be ok.

But that was lie. Just like everything else.

Ouma hardly even noticed when Monokuma showed up to give them a speech about investigating the body, going on and on about rules and causes of death and things like that. It was only when the others began to argue that he snapped back to his senses.

It would be ok. It HAD to be ok. If he didn’t make sure of that, they were all going to die.

He forced a smile onto his face.

“Welp, we gotta investigate, right? Let’s get going!”

The others turned to look at him, latching on to where he had driven the conversation. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw concern cross over Kiibo’s face. He decided to ignore him.

It didn’t take long for the group to start fighting, suspicion about the culprit hiding among them already becoming rampant. But, much to Ouma’s surprise, Saihara was the one to step forward and calm them down. Perhaps he had been underestimating the detective. Though, on the other hand, it was becoming very apparent how closely he stuck to Akamatsu. As if her presence alone allowed him to take control of the situation. It made Ouma uneasy, though he wasn’t sure why.

He wanted to get out of here. Out of this place where he had to watch Saihara cling to Akamatsu like a lifeline. Out of this place where, if he looked up just a little too far at the bloodstain on the wall, he could hear Amami’s voice clear in his head.

He needed to escape.

After Monokuma had given them the Monokuma File and they had all agreed to investigate, Ouma saw his chance.

“Hey, sooo.... I don’t care about this mushy stuff, so let’s just get started already. Oh, and try to take this seriously, ok? Our lives are on the line.”

“It takes a lot of mental power to say something like that so cheerfully,” Shirogane said with a sigh.

But Ouma was already halfway to the library’s door.

She had no idea.

-

By the time Ouma stopped to realize where he was walking, his feet had already carried him to school’s entrance hallway.

He let out a bitter laugh. “What am I trying to do? Run away?” Even if he wanted to, it wasn’t like was any place he could go.

_“The mastermind might still be alive. But that doesn’t mean this game can’t end.”_

_“You sure it’s safe to think that way?”_

Ouma clenched his hand into a fist. He was stupid. The others had been so full of talk of unity and getting along that he had almost started to believe them. He thought that if they could hold it together just a little bit longer, they could find a way out. But what did they have to show for all of that? They were nowhere closer to finding any answers. And now Amami was dead.

An image of Amami’s lifeless body flashed through Ouma’s mind, his blood splattered on the bookcase behind him.

_“Just... don’t go dying on me, kay?”_

Ouma put a hand to his mouth. He felt like throwing up.

“You think you can get away with telling me not to die? And then you go and... and...”

And what? Leave him alone? Ouma wasn’t even sure if he considered Amami a friend yet. So why did he feel like something important had been ripped away from him?

Ouma could feel tears beginning to well in his eyes and he furiously wiped at them with his sleeve. 

“Ouma? What are you doing out here?”

Ouma stiffened at the sound of Akamatsu’s voice behind him. Shit. Not right now. He scrubbed the tears from his eyes and spun around on his heel, placing yet another smile on his face.

When he saw Akamatsu and Saihara together, a lump caught in his throat. He forced himself to speak through it.

“Oh! Investigating together, are we? You two sure have gotten awfully chummy!”

There was concern on Akamatsu’s face. Concern that he immediately wanted to go away.

“Are you here alone, Ouma?”

“Hm? Yeah, why?”

“We agreed to investigate with at least one other person.”

“Oooh, did we? Well, just because we agreed doesn’t mean we have to do it, right?”

There was something dark in Saihara’s expression. Doubt perhaps? Ouma held his smile.

Akamatsu frowned. “Why would you do something that would make everyone suspicious of you?”

_“You’re heading down a dangerous path, you know that, right?”_

Stop.

He didn’t want Akamatsu’s concern. He hadn’t wanted Amami’s. But Amami had given it anyway, and now look at where he’d ended up.

Ouma made a decision.

“Cuz I’m an evil supreme leader, remember?” He looked Akamatsu in the eyes. “I’m supposed to be suspicious!”

The concern on Akamatsu’s face turned into confusion. She didn’t say anything else.

“There’s something I wanted to ask you,” Saihara cut in. “What were you doing at the time Amami was killed?”

Doubt still lingered in the detective’s voice. It was unclear whether it was out of defense for Akamatsu, or simply because he was doing his job. Ouma decided he could use it to his advantage.

He flashed Saihara a grin. “Well, to tell you the truth... I was in the library smashing in Amami’s head!” A sick feeling rose in his stomach and he swallowed it back down.

“Hey! Quit screwing around and take this seriously!” The concern had completely vanished from Akamatsu’s face. Good.

“Why? Do I really need to tell you guys what I was doing?” Ouma met her eyes again. “If I give you honest answers now, it’d just make everything boring, right?”

“What are you saying?” Akamatsu’s expression hardened.

“I’m just saying, this is a game. Let’s have some fun with it!”

“This isn’t a game,” Saihara interjected. “Amami was murdered. Our lives are at stake.”

As if Ouma didn’t know that already. 

He forced himself to laugh. “Exactly! It’s a game of life or death!”

Saihara gave him a look filled with suspicion before Akamatsu pulled him off to investigate somewhere else. As Ouma watched the pair walk away, the smile finally fell from his face.

He didn’t need their concern. Or their sadness. Or their pity. 

What he did need was for them to survive. 

_“You’re heading down a dangerous path, you know that, right?”_

Ouma chuckled bitterly. “I AM a liar, after all. It’s the one thing I’m good at.”

Akamatsu and Saihara had believed his lies. And he had no doubt that he could get the others to believe him just as easily.

Amami would probably disapprove of this decision. But Amami was dead. And Ouma would be damned if he let the same thing happen to anyone else. He was going to do something about this. And if he had to lie to everyone, and to himself, to make that happen... that was just the way it had to be.

###### Day 4  
Night

_“You guys better live! Don’t go dying on me now!”_

_“End this ridiculous killing game, survive, and get the hell out of this place!”_

_“And then... be friends after you escape, okay? I think you’ll all be the best of friends.”_

-

Ouma ran his hands through his hair, pulling out several strands as he did so. In hindsight, he should have seen it coming. With all of her unfailing optimism, Akamatsu should have been way too obvious. And yet... watching her being dragged away, hung from a rope, killed before their eyes... Ouma dug his fingernails into his scalp. He could still hear Saihara’s screams echoing in his memory.

_“I don’t think I’ve got much to worry about. Akamatsu’s really more of the protagonist type, don’t you think?”_

Everything was falling apart. And it was all happening too fast. In one, single stroke, they’d lost the two most capable people in the group. The two people that Ouma thought he could rely on to hold everyone together. 

Akamatsu was supposed to be their leader.

But maybe that had just been one more lie.

Ouma sighed, looking up at the night sky through the glass roof of the school’s greenhouse. Why he’d chosen to come here of all places, he wasn’t sure. Logically it should have reminded him of the trial, and of the execution that followed. But the longer he’d spent pacing in his room, the more apprehensive he’d ended up feeling.

At the very least, it had been quiet. Ouma wasn’t exactly fond of being left alone with his thoughts, but he didn’t think he could face any of the others at the moment. And the greenhouse was the one place he was sure no one would come to.

At least, that’s what he’d assumed.

Ouma had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost didn’t hear the greenhouse door open and close. When he heard footsteps slowly approaching, he froze.

Go away.

Go away.

He kept his eyes glued to the ceiling.

“Ouma?”

Ouma’s heart sank. He knew exactly who that voice belonged to. And it was the last person he wanted to see.

He shut his eyes, cursing in his head. It was too late to get up and leave now. Maybe a lame excuse would have worked on someone else. And even if it didn’t, they’d most likely be too nervous to protest. But something told him that, out of everyone, Kiibo wasn’t about to budge.

A moment of silence passed. Ouma still had his eyes closed, refusing to acknowledge the robot’s presence. He was waiting for Kiibo to ask him any number of questions. What was he doing here? Was he ok? Did he need someone to talk to? Ouma didn’t want to answer any of them.

But, much to Ouma’s surprise, Kiibo didn’t say anything. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the fountain, next to where Ouma himself was sitting. Ouma heard an awkward shuffle of feet, but still Kiibo said nothing.

Growing irritated, Ouma finally turned his head to look at the robot. When he did, he was greeted by a pair of glowing blue eyes staring directly back at him. Something caught in Ouma’s throat.

“W...What?” He wanted to either scoot backwards or push Kiibo far, far away. He didn’t move.

Kiibo studied him before he looked down at his hands, pressing his fingers together. It was a habit that Ouma was starting to take as a sign that he was nervous. “May I... ask you a question?”

Ouma didn’t want to answer any questions. He looked back up at the ceiling. “Even if I say no, you’re just gonna ask anyway.”

Kiibo grumbled something that was too quiet for Ouma to make out. But instead of asking his question, he just fell silent. Ouma wondered if he’d gotten scared and given up. Why come out and ask in the first place if he was just going to clam up? Ouma was beginning to grow irritated again.

“Did you have feelings for Amami?”

Ouma choked. In fact, he would have fallen backwards into the fountain if Kiibo hadn’t shot out a hand to catch him. Not that Ouma noticed, because he was too busy bending over and coughing.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize it was such a personal question!” Kiibo was sputtering. “I shouldn’t have asked! I’m so sorry-”

“What the hell, Kiibo?!”

Kiibo froze next to him, his hands in the air like he was being held at gunpoint. “Excuse me?”

Ouma looked up at him through narrowed eyes. He was still heaving for breath, one hand clutching the front of his shirt. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“What? No! I would never-”

“Then what the heck was that question?”

Kiibo frowned, very obviously processing something in his head. “Was I mistaken?”

“Obviously, you dumb robot.” Ouma wasn’t sure whether he should be annoyed or impressed at Kiibo’s lack of understanding. Mostly, he just wanted to know how he’d come to such a conclusion in the first place.

“But...” Kiibo paused, as if choosing his words carefully. “You did seem attached to him... Perhaps I don’t quite understand humans as well as I thought.”

Ouma frowned. Attached? Sure, he had liked Amami more than he liked a lot of the others, but he didn’t think that alone counted for very much.

“Attached how?”

Kiibo looked at him, a little surprised. He’d probably expected Ouma to snap at him, but at this point, Ouma was more curious than anything else.

“Um, well.” Kiibo pressed his fingers together again. “The way you talked to each other was different than the way you talked to others, for one. It seemed like you both knew something that you weren’t saying aloud.”

“I hope you know that makes no sense at all.”

Kiibo shot him a frustrated look. “I’m trying. It’s difficult to put into words.”

Ouma rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. You said ‘for one.’ What’s the other part?”

“Well... You seemed pretty upset after he died.”

Oh.

“If you’re talking about what happened in the dorms, that was before I knew it was Amami.”

“I know.”

Ouma looked at him in confusion. “Then what are you even talking about?”

There was a pause before Kiibo replied. “You... left the library very quickly, you know.”

So he had noticed. Maybe Kiibo really did understand more than Ouma gave him credit for. Either that, or...

“Were you watching me?”

Kiibo shot his hands up in alarm. “No! I wasn’t spying on you or anything! I just happened to notice-”

“You’re a really bad liar, Kiiboy.”

Kiibo stopped in the middle of his sentence. “I’m sorry...”

“Not like you can take it back now,” Ouma pointed out.

“I know. It’s just... I was worried.”

“What? Did you think I killed him or something?”

Kiibo shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that. I just thought that you were... close to Amami. And then after the way you were acting in the dorms...”

Something tightened in Ouma’s chest. He’d been careless. Sure, he could blame it on the shock of the moment, but he’d let way too much slip in such a short amount of time. 

He didn’t need anyone’s concern. Not Amami’s. Not Akamatsu’s. And certainly not Kiibo’s.

“You shouldn’t take everything I say so seriously, Kiiboy.”

Kiibo frowned at him. “What?”

“I mean, come on. Did it ever occur to you that I was lying?”

“You-”

“I AM a liar, you know. I didn’t take you for the gullible type, but jeeze, you really-”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

Ouma turned to look at Kiibo. But instead of frustration, or irritation, or anything else that Ouma had been expecting, he saw only a sad look on the robot’s face.

Ouma ripped his gaze away. “Doing what?”

“Saying things you don’t mean.”

_“Why would you do something that would make everyone suspicious of you?”_

Stop.

“Because I’m a LIAR, Kiiboy. Jeeze, learn to keep up.”

He had to end this conversation. And fast. If he didn’t, he was bound to say something that he’d regret.

“But you are clearly contradicting yourself,” Kiibo pressed.

“Yeah. That’s the point.”

“But how do you expect anyone to trust you when-”

“Amami and Akamatsu are DEAD, Kiibo. Do you really expect trust to be the first thing on my mind?”

Kiibo’s eyes were wide when Ouma turned to look at him. They held each other’s gaze in silence before Kiibo finally spoke.

“Did you trust Amami?”

Ouma felt like throwing something at him.

“Look, I don’t know, ok. Can we stop with the questions?”

Kiibo frowned, but seemed to consider this. “May I ask one more thing at least?”

Ouma groaned. “Fine. What?”

“Do you trust me?”

_I don’t know._

Ouma couldn’t find it in himself to answer.

Silence fell between them after that, neither wanting to push the issue. As Ouma sat looking up at the stars, he was vaguely aware of how easy it was becoming to talk to Kiibo. And that in itself was dangerous. 

“I did think Amami was interesting, I’ll admit that much,” he said, getting up from his seat at the edge of the fountain. “But you were still totally off base. I mean, it’s not like we were Saihara and Akamatsu.”

There was an expression on Kiibo’s face that Ouma could only describe as bittersweet. “So you noticed it too.”

“It was pretty obvious, if you ask me.”

Kiibo wrung his hands together. “I feel bad for Saihara. It... must be difficult. To lose someone you care about like that.”

“It’s always tough when people die,” Ouma pointed out. “Besides, it’s not a great idea to get that close to someone in this kinda situation.”

“I doubt that’s something you can control so easily.”

“How do you know?”

“I... suppose I don’t.”

Ouma sighed. “Well, either way, we’ll have plenty of time to get used to it around here.”

“You can’t truly mean that.”

“Who knows? Maybe I’m just lying.”

A strange expression crossed over Kiibo’s face. Ouma wasn’t sure if it was pain or sadness... or a combination of both. 

“I don’t believe I ever want to get used to this.”

Ouma realized with a pang that he never wanted to see that expression on Kiibo’s face again. He spun around to march toward the entrance of the greenhouse.

“Let’s hope you won’t have to.”

There was a shuffle as Kiibo stood up behind him. “Ouma, wait-”

But Ouma was already out the door.

-

By the time Ouma made it back to his dorm room, it was well into the night. Of course, he’d walked around the school a bit after he’d left the greenhouse, just to make sure that Kiibo didn’t immediately follow him back to the dorms. But he was pretty sure that most of his exhaustion didn’t actually come from how late it was.

As he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, Ouma silently cursed his luck. It hadn’t even been a few hours since the trial, and already he’d messed up. Why had Kiibo even come to the greenhouse in the first place? He had admitted to keeping an eye on Ouma after they discovered Amami’s body. Did that have something to do with it?

Ouma sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He’d made up his mind about how to act toward the others from now on. But for some reason, he was finding it difficult to lie in front of Kiibo. Perhaps it was because Kiibo was a horrible liar himself. The robot was entirely too honest for his own good.

_“Do you trust me?”_

Ouma groaned. He hadn’t meant to say much to begin with. So the fact that their conversation had even reached that point was a very bad sign. He dreaded the day when he would actually find an answer to that question. He hoped he never would.

As he rolled over on his bed, his eyes fell on the whiteboard that he’d dragged over from the warehouse. The one Amami had pointed out to him. It had remained untouched as Ouma attempted to dig around the school for answers.

He needed to come up with a plan. He wasn’t exactly sure what, but he knew he needed something.

Slowly, he swung his legs off the bed and went to rummage around in one of his drawers.

Kiibo was right. Well, not entirely. His assumptions were still completely off base, but he had been onto something. Ouma had cared about Amami. He had cared about Akamatsu. He cared about all of them. Whether it was as classmates, as friends, or simply as fellow human beings, Ouma wasn’t sure of yet. But the sentiment remained all the same.

He pulled out a small envelope and several whiteboard markers from his drawer.

If Ouma was honest, he didn’t know if he could save everyone who was left. Monokuma, and the killing game as a whole, were still too far out of his control, at least for the moment. Maybe more of them would die. Maybe they would have to watch these executions once, twice, or even several times more. Maybe it would all be pointless in end. But, at least for the time being, Ouma had made up his mind.

He tacked Amami and Akamatsu’s pictures to the whiteboard.

He was going to end this killing game. No matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far! I've spent a lot of time thinking about the little ways that Kiibo and Ouma's relationship is portrayed throughout V3, and I always wished the game had built on it a bit more. So I decided to write my own take on their growth throughout the game.
> 
> I'll probably add to this slowly, but you're always welcome to come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/birusabi) or [Tumblr](https://birusabi.tumblr.com/) in the meantime!


	2. A Thin Line Divides Heaven and Hell

###### Day 5  
Time Unknown

_Something was wrong._

_Kiibo pounded his fists against the tall metal door in font of him, a sense of desperation growing stronger and stronger. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to get to the other side of the door. Needed to get to the other side. But no matter how many times he slammed his hands against it, the door refused to budge._

_Behind him, a monitor clicked on and someone spoke in a high-pitched voice that Kiibo found he had already gotten used to._

_*ding dong ding dong*  
“A body has been discovered! The killing game just keeps on going!”_

_Kiibo’s vision drowned in neon green. And then without warning, there were voices all around him. The voices of his classmates, yelling out something that he couldn’t quite comprehend._

_How many times had this happened? The voices seemed so sparse, as if only a handful of them remained._

_Kiibo felt fear gnaw at his insides and he found himself searching for once voice in particular._

_Who was it? Were they someone important? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that he needed to find them._

_Surely... surely if he concentrated hard enough, through the green haze and the heavy smell of iron in the air..._

_Fear turned into realization._

_The voice he was searching for was no longer there._

-

Kiibo woke up gasping.

It took only a moment to recognize his room at the academy, a quick scan of his surroundings revealing the same monochrome walls and the same obnoxious monitor nestled in the corner. It was early, before the usual morning announcement, and he was sitting curled up on his bed, his charging cable plugged into a port on the wall.

Kiibo let out a heavy sigh as he attempted to collect his thoughts. He had asked the professor once about the existence of nightmares, and he had been told something about emotions or memories twisted to an extreme by the subconscious. Not that Kiibo had understood much of it at the time.

However, with that explanation in mind, these nightmares didn’t make any sense. Surely they couldn’t be based off any variation of his memories, no matter how exaggerated. Maybe there were other factors that could trigger strange dreams? Or maybe he was programmed to dream differently than a normal human would...

Kiibo sighed again, finally retracting his charging cable and preparing himself to head for the dining hall. Odd nightmares were probably the least of his worries, if he was being honest. Akamatsu’s execution still lingered fresh in his memory, the haunting tone of piano keys and cruel laughter playing like a record at the back of his mind. And then there was the matter of his classmates and their attempts to move forward. Was escape even an option anymore? Was teamwork? Or was this the sort of event that they had no hope of ever coming back from?

The more Kiibo thought about it, the more he was beginning to realize just how daunting the future seemed to be. As a robot, he’d always been prepared to be one step behind the rest of his classmates. But now? Now that inexperience came with consequences he wasn’t sure he could afford. 

And if life at the academy was to continue down its current path, he knew that things were only going to get worse.

###### Day 5  
Morning

Somehow, despite Kiibo’s earlier misgivings, breakfast in the dining hall started out surprisingly normal. There was, of course, the discovery of writing in the courtyard, as well as the disappearance of Saihara’s hat. But all things considered, Kiibo found himself surrounded by the same light chatter that greeted him every day. 

Maybe everyone simply wanted to forget about the events of the trial, or the fact that two chairs at the dining table were now empty. Or maybe the polite conversation was more out of respect than denial, carefully tiptoeing around Saihara, who just seemed to pick at his food until Momota nudged him to eat.

As Kiibo listened to the soft voices around him, he wondered if it was ok to go on as if nothing had happened. Just waiting for the wound to scab over before they inevitably had to face this whole thing again. Or perhaps, as a robot, it wasn’t even something that he should be questioning in the first place-

“Hm? What’s wrong, Kiiboy? You’re not eating.”

Ouma’s voice snapped Kiibo out of his thoughts and he looked up, confused. Across from him at the table, Ouma smiled. “Oh yeah! I totally forgot you can’t eat! Y’know, cuz you’re a robot!”

On an ordinary day, Kiibo would have grumbled at obvious jab and then left it at that. But their conversation from the night before still lingered in his memory (among plenty of other things), so this time it made him pause. It was obvious that Ouma had taken Amami’s death hard, even if Kiibo had been a little off in his assumptions. So was it really possible for him to revert back to his old teasing so quickly? Ouma had never been very easy to read, but it wasn’t until recently that Kiibo had started to suspect there might be something there worth reading...

“Hey now, don’t look so down,” Ouma continued, oblivious to Kiibo’s inner conflict. “I’ll bring you a broken TV later, ok?” The shorter boy looked at him expectantly, and Kiibo realized that he was waiting for him to respond.

“Er... I don’t want that,” he mumbled, struggling to think of what to say. “I am not a waste receptacle.”

Ouma raised an eyebrow and snickered at the reply. Kiibo found himself wondering if it was genuine or not and immediately felt guilty. 

He wasn’t given much time to dwell on it though as, seemingly satisfied, Ouma shifted his attention toward Yumeno, snatching a rice ball from her plate and immediately plopping it in his mouth. This earned a vengeful screech from Chabashira, who dove at him from across the table, and the two ended up in a tussle that nearly bulldozed half of the breakfast array. It took some stern words from Tojo (and some considerable muscle from Gonta) to pry them apart without breaking anything. And as Kiibo listened to the pair’s attempts at apologizing, partially drowned out by loud laughter from Iruma, he decided that maybe he was worrying a little too much after all.

The rest of breakfast (or what was left of it) continued uneventfully, and Kiibo eventually drifted into the kitchen to help Tojo and Hoshi with dishes. Soft chatter continued to flow from the dining room, and the more Kiibo thought about it, the more it really did seem like just another morning. Just the same group of people bickering and discussing things of little importance. As if, somehow or another, life would continue on peacefully. 

That is, until he heard an unmistakable voice rise clearly above everyone else.

“Nishishi~ Gonta you’re so gullible.”

Kiibo stepped back into the dining room in time to see a knowing smile spread across Ouma’s face.

“If you keep being this gullible... you’ll be killed before you know it. Understand?”

The atmosphere of the room froze, the soft conversation grinding to a standstill. It was as if they’d all been struggling to protect some fragile sense of peace, and with a single statement, Ouma had shattered it into a million pieces.

But at the same time...

“What’s wrong everyone? Is there a problem with Ouma’s advice?”

Kiibo didn’t realize he had spoken until he saw several pairs of eyes turn to look at him.

Immediately, he slapped a hand over his mouth. It was true that he’d been mulling over similar thoughts all morning, conflicted between the old sense of camaraderie and the memory of yesterday's trial. But he had never meant to say anything out loud... no matter how much Ouma’s warning has resonated with the nagging in his brain...

As everyone devolved into nervous bickering, Kiibo glanced around the room, relieved to find the others too wrapped up in their own concerns to pay him any mind.

And then his gaze got to Ouma and he felt his circuits stutter. Ouma was staring at him with wide eyes, his mouth slightly agape in an expression that Kiibo had only ever seen directed at him once before: shock. Except, unlike the time he had run into Ouma in the dorms, the other boy seemed completely aware of himself, his gaze nearly boring holes into Kiibo’s skull. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the expression vanished, replaced by a lackadaisical smile as Ouma’s attention was drawn away by Shirogane, leaving Kiibo to question whether it had even been there at all.

Not long after, Monokuma came and went, giving instructions about newly unlocked rooms and secret items. And with it, the tension in the group began to subside, the effects of Ouma’s warning becoming lost in the shuffle of new information and things to do. 

Only Kiibo, for all of his efforts, found that his attention lingered elsewhere. Still caught on a pair of purple eyes that had stared as if they were seeing him for the first time. And despite himself, Kiibo wasn’t even sure if he understood why.

###### Day 6  
Afternoon

A full day had passed since the altercation in the dining room, though it seemed like not a moment went by without something new cropping up. Kiibo had spent most of his time investigating the new areas, different rooms and floors that were somehow both unique and yet all too similar to the ones they’d started out with. And then there was the flashback light and the motive videos from just that morning...

Letting out a sigh, Kiibo put down the book he’d been pouring over for the past two hours. He’d come to the library intent on finding some information, no matter how small. The reveal of the supposed “Ultimate Hunt” had put everyone on edge, to say the least. But if the whole thing was really as big a deal as Monokuma made it out to be, then he had done an incredibly good job of hiding it. Even after combing though the entire library, there was still not a hint of information to be found.

Discouraged, Kiibo had decided to turn his attention elsewhere and had picked up a book on human psychology. After all, if he better understood the minds of his classmates, then perhaps, he figured, he could also find a way to calm the growing unease that permeated the group. At least, that’s what he’d initially told himself.

_“The more we try to cooperate, the more Monokuma will try to make us suffer. That’s why I had no choice but to screw with you guys.”_

If Kiibo was being honest, there was one person he was more concerned with understanding than anyone else. And despite two full hours of thorough research, Kiibo was still no closer to piecing him together.

Logically speaking, Kiibo assumed that the best solution to anything would be to work as a group. It was what Akamatsu had wanted, and it was why he’d agreed to the idea of ignoring the motive videos altogether. If no one gave in to Monokuma’s prodding, then it was one less thing that he could hold over them... wasn’t it? So then why was Ouma so determined about being contrary? Perhaps, by working against Monokuma, they were really just playing into his trap? Maybe he had planned for their cooperation all along and was just waiting to turn it against them...

Kiibo placed his head in his hands. The more he tried to sort things out, the more everything just stopped making sense. 

“Humans are so confusing...”

As he sat mulling over his thoughts, Kiibo heard the library door open and close from across the room, followed by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. He had just enough time to lift his head from his hands before a finger was rudely shoved in his face.

“There you are! I’ve been searching this entire fuckin’ school for you, you piece of shit!”

Kiibo sighed, somewhat disappointed that he’d already grown used to this. “Could you please tone down your cursing, Iruma?”

Iruma, who appeared to be slightly more disheveled than usual, just glared at him, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I think the fuck not,” she spat out. “Do you know how long I’ve been walking around looking for your virgin ass?”

“Er, no?”

“Well... Well it was a long goddamn time!”

Confused, Kiibo checked the time on his Monopad, only to realize that it was much, much later into the afternoon than he had assumed. Iruma’s irritation now made perfect sense and Kiibo felt immensely guilty. 

“I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed, turning his attention back to Iruma. “I’m the one who asked you to help me with maintenance, but I’m afraid I got caught up in my reading and didn’t notice how late it was and then-”

“Ok, ok! It’s- Whatever. It’s fine,” she insisted, cutting him off. “You don’t have to fuckin’ grovel in front of me.”

Kiibo smiled, both grateful for the forgiveness and a little amused at how easily her anger disappeared. “We can head to your lab in a moment then,” he confirmed. “Just let me return this book to where I found it.”

Iruma gave a huff of acknowledgment and plopped down in one of the chairs. “So what were you reading anyway?” she asked, watching as he made his way to the bookshelves. “Somebody actually figure out where this school stashes its porn?”

Kiibo choked, whirling around as he felt his face immediately heat up. “D-Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I wouldn’t be reading something like that!”

Iruma only cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why’re you getting so defensive then, huh?” she purred. “You’re a teenage guy, even if you are a bit metallic. I get if you have those kinds of desires-”

“I have nothing of the sort!”

“Aw, can robots not get all hot and bothered? I can fix that for you, you know-”

“Please do not!”

Iruma chuckled. “Jeeze, you really are a fuckin’ virgin. Fine. If you weren’t looking at tits, then what were you looking at?”

“A... book on human psychology.”

Iruma stared at him. “A what?”

“It’s a textbook detailing the psychology-”

“I know what a fuckin’ book is. I mean why were you reading it?”

“Oh.” Kiibo frowned, glancing down at the book in his hands. The old leather of its cover felt oddly rough beneath his fingertips. “I suppose I just wanted a better understanding of the people here. I... have a feeling that I’m not doing very well on my own.”

“Why the hell would you think something like that?”

Kiibo shook his head. “I don’t know. Like I said, it’s just a feeling. It’s difficult to make heads or tails of things sometimes.”

“Hmmm...” Iruma mumbled. She sat half-slouched in her chair, one arm thrown over the back, and as usual, Kiibo couldn’t really tell if she was thinking about this seriously or not. “If you wanna understand people,” she finally supplied. “Why don’t ya just talk to them? That should be pretty easy, right?”

Maybe it should have been, but...

“What if the more I talk to someone, the less I understand?”

Iruma stared at him like he was missing something obvious. “Uh... then don’t you just gotta talk to them more?”

“I’m not sure if it’s that simple, Iruma.”

“People seem pretty fuckin’ simple to me.”

“That is... easy for you to say.”

Iruma rolled her eyes, finally getting up from her chair. “So what? You think the rest of us just know what everyone else is thinking cause we’re all human?”

“Maybe?”

“Well news flash, we don’t,” Iruma huffed. “I mean, obviously I’m different cause I’m a fuckin’ genius. But everyone else? They know jack shit, just like you do. And it’s not like some dusty old book is suddenly gonna help either.”

“Then... do you think it’s pointless for me to try?”

Iruma frowned at him, though there didn’t seem to be any anger beneath it. “Why do you even care so much anyway?”

Kiibo considered this for a moment, his mind drifting back to late-night conversations and unending cryptic comments. It was highly unlikely that his understanding of Ouma could make or break their situation (at least he assumed). So why WAS he so hung up over this? Was it purely out of curiosity? Or was it something else? 

“I suppose I don’t really know,” was all he could manage.

Iruma raised an eyebrow. “Well, then I definitely can’t help you there.”

Kiibo shook his head, finally placing his book back on the shelf where it belonged. “That’s alright. I assume this is something I will have to figure out for myself. Even if it may be impossible, there are still many things I wish to learn.”

Iruma chuckled, giving Kiibo a rather hard slap on the back. “So robots can be all sappy too, huh? You’re just full of fuckin’ surprises today.”

“Er, thank you?”

“But enough talking. Let’s get you to my lab so I can see what other secrets you’ve got hiding under that armor.”

“Please do not make me regret trusting you with this...”

“You can always trust me with a little bit more, ya know-”

“Iruma!”

Iruma’s laughter filled the library as she made her way to the door, Kiibo begrudgingly hot on her heels.

Perhaps there really was no easy way to go about this. But perhaps Kiibo didn’t need to understand everything right away either. For every conversation and every little bit of trust that he earned, he would still be making progress. And that in itself was enough.

###### Day 7  
Night

_“That’s it! I won’t let you do as you please!”_

_“Hm?” Ouma stared at Kiibo, the robot’s black armor silhouetted by the bright green of Gonta’s Ultimate Lab._

_“I didn’t want to use this unless I absolutely had to. It eats up a lot of my electricity.”_

_What was this? The Kubs’ Pads in Ouma’s hands suddenly felt heavy._

_“But that’s neither here nor there. I will stop you, right here, right now!”_

_Kiibo’s eyes locked with Ouma’s as he wound the mechanical parts behind his ear, the electronic text around his collar glowing a brilliant blue._

_“Nishishi~ Gonta’s so simple-minded. As soon as I told him that everyone who hates bugs was trying to get rid of them, he started crying and said he would get you guys to love bugs... or something like that.”_

_By the time Ouma registered that his own voice was playing from Kiibo’s system, the room had devolved into chaos._

-

“Ouma.”

Ouma’s head was buzzing. Like the sound of a million beetles fluttering and crawling in a swarm all around him. In his ears. In his mouth.

“Ouma!”

“AUGH!”

A shake brought Ouma roughly to his senses, and he would have likely punched the person above him had he not recognized the glowing blue eyes staring back at him.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you to be more gentle with human beings, Kiiboy?”

Kiibo frowned, though he didn’t seem to be offended by the comment. “You were thrashing in your sleep.”

Sleep?

Ouma glanced around, finally taking in his surroundings. He appeared to be lying on his back, positioned sideways on one of the benches that lined the school halls. Judging by the layout, he was probably still on the third floor, and... Yup. He could even see the door to Gonta’s lab if he tilted his head far enough. The thought sent a shiver up his spine, so he turned his attention back to Kiibo, who was seated on a portion of the bench behind his head.

“So I apparently missed the memo, but when exactly did I fall asleep in the hallway?”

“You didn’t,” Kiibo explained. “Gonta said you passed out while you were, um, spending time with his bugs.” Ouma shuddered again, but Kiibo just continued. “He wasn’t sure what to do, so I suggested that he let you rest until you properly woke up.”

Ah. So that’s what happened. Ouma wasn’t surprised considering his strong opinion on insects, though he WAS a little concerned by the implication that he’d let his guard drop so far. And that still didn’t answer the other very obvious mystery on his hands.

“Ooook,” he said, still trying to wrap his head around everything. “But in that case, why’re you here?”

Kiibo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You guys ditched me as soon as Gonta got all mad, right?” Ouma reminded him. “I doubt I was in there for just a few minutes. So why are you here when no one else is?”

Kiibo’s eyes widened with understanding. “Oh! The others did return to their rooms a while ago. But I stayed behind to keep an eye on you.”

Wait... What?

“You waited here?”

“I think that’s fairly obvious?”

“You waited after everyone else went back to their rooms? After GONTA left and went back to his room?”

“Um... Yes?”

“Why?”

The confusion on Kiibo’s face only deepened. Ouma was having a hard time deciding whether or not the robot was messing with him (though he wasn’t even sure if Kiibo was capable of something like that in the first place).

“I... do not require regular sleep like the others,” Kiibo replied, making an attempt to avoid Ouma's gaze but failing pretty miserably at it. “There was no need for me to return to my room right away, so I thought it would be best if I remained here instead.”

“Uh huh. But I thought you said your little recording trick uses up a bunch of your electricity.”

“Er... Well... Even if it did, I do not need to charge myself immediately.”

Ouma narrowed his eyes, finally pulling himself up into a sitting position. The buzzing in his ears had died down, but Kiibo’s explanations were beginning to throw more questions at him than answers. Ouma could tell that the robot was bluffing about not needing to charge. Kiibo was too transparent to pull off a lie that could fool him of all people. But if he really WAS lying, then his actions didn’t make any sense...

“You’re the one who recorded me and pissed off Gonta, aren’t you?”

“Um, yes?”

“Then I don’t get it! You got what you wanted, right?” Ouma was faintly aware that he was raising his voice more than usual, but at the same time he didn’t really care. “Everyone cooperated and you guys didn’t have to watch your dumb motive videos. So why the hell are you still here? What else do you want?” Ouma had never taken Kiibo to be the type to gloat about his victory. That was something more up Momota or Yumeno’s alley. But if that was the case, then what other reason did he have to stay behind?

Kiibo stared at him blankly before replying. “I’m... not sure if I wanted anything,” he mumbled. “I suppose I just didn’t think it was a good idea to leave you alone.”

“I wasn’t gonna kill anyone,” Ouma huffed. “You guys all left anyway.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

_“I was worried.”_

_“What, did you think I killed him or something?”_

_“No, it wasn’t that...”_

Something tightened in Ouma’s chest.

“Well, whatever. Now that I’m ‘properly awake’ as you put it, let’s get the heck out of here.” Ouma hopped off the bench, swinging his hands behind his head in an attempt to appear unphased. “If I stick around the Ultimate creepy-crawly zoo any longer, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Kiibo studied him for a moment before shaking his head and standing up from the bench as well. “You really don’t like bugs, do you?”

“Gee, what gave me away? The screaming or the fact that I literally passed out?”

Ouma made his way to the stairs and Kiibo followed him at a slightly slower pace.

“I am... sorry for putting you through that,” Kiibo apologized. “I had no idea that Gonta would trap you in there for so long. But I wasn’t quite sure what else I was supposed to do.”

“Uh, you could have just watched the motive videos like I wanted you guys to?”

Kiibo shook his head. “You know I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Yeah, you made that pretty obvious,” Ouma huffed. 

In all honesty, Kiibo’s little recording trick had been somewhat fascinating. Ouma knew that he had to be hiding at least a few tricks up his metal robot sleeves. But what had actually surprised him was the fact that Kiibo was the only one in the room with the guts to fight back. Ouma didn’t want to admit it, but it was likely that he hadn’t reacted in time because Kiibo’s actions had thrown him so far off guard. Which now led them to this...

“So,” Ouma continued, still trying his best to act nonchalant. “You guys really didn’t wanna see your motive videos that badly, huh?”

“We did come to an agreement on it,” Kiibo pointed out. “Everyone except you that is.”

“Duh. That’s cause my plan was the smart thing to do.”

Kiibo paused. “I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while now, but... what is your intention in getting us to watch the motive videos?”

Ouma rolled his eyes. As if he was going to give an answer that easily. “You’re the one who’s so adamant about us NOT watching them. Why don’t you figure that out for yourself?”

“I’ve already tried.”

Ouma stopped in the middle of the stairway. “Wait, really?”

“I’ve been considering your reasons for the past two days,” Kiibo explained, also coming to a halt two steps behind him. “I asked Iruma for her opinion yesterday. And then Saihara this morning as well. But neither of them seemed to have any answers...”

Ouma stared, the gears turning in his head. For as far back as memory served, no one had ever given that much thought to his intentions. Ouma preferred it that way: people brushing him off as just another nuisance, all while his words quietly lingered at the back of their minds. So how did Kiibo suddenly come along and manage to take him so seriously that he spent an entire two days mulling things over? Did he really have that much time on his hands? Or was there something else that was making him so abnormally determined? Ouma wasn’t sure which option he would rather prefer.

“Hmm,” Ouma continued, searching Kiibo’s expression but finding nothing remotely helpful. “If you really wanna know what I’m thinking, then let me ask you this. Why’re you so against the motive videos in the first place?”

Kiibo frowned. “I’m the one who asked you a question first.”

“Answer mine and maybe I’ll answer yours.”

It should have been fairly obvious that Ouma was lying, but Kiibo still seemed to give it some thought. “I suppose I thought it would be what’s best for everyone,” he finally replied. “The motive videos are... well... a motive. Monokuma wouldn’t have given them to us if he didn’t want us to watch them. So I thought, maybe if we decided to cooperate, then no one else would have to die.”

“Riiight.” Ouma rolled his eyes. “Just trust that everyone’s gonna behave themselves because you told them to. Did you come up with that genius plan all on your own?”

Ouma shot Kiibo a pointed glance, waiting for the robot to grumble at him like usual. But to his surprise, there was an oddly concerned look on Kiibo’s face.

“I... It wasn’t entirely my plan...”

The heck was that supposed to mean? The strange reply made Ouma nervous, for reasons he couldn’t really put a finger on.

“Either way,” he continued. “I guess we’ll just have to see whose idea works out best in the end. Yours or mine.”

“That’s probably- Wait! You never answered my question!”

“Nishishi~ Did you seriously think I was gonna explain myself just because you asked?”

Kiibo groaned. “No, I suppose not.”

Ouma snickered, skipping ahead down the staircase while Kiibo’s heavy footsteps resumed behind him.

Ever since this killing game had begun, Ouma had always wondered where Kiibo got his idealism. The thing that made him believe everyone would simply get along, especially when they’d already received so much evidence to the contrary. For a while, Ouma considered that maybe it stemmed from sheer simplicity... But if Kiibo was really so simple-minded, then why was he walking down the stairs with Ouma now? Why did he so adamantly foil Ouma’s plans, only to stick around and ask questions with so much earnesty? Ouma couldn’t come up with a suitable answer. And he doubted that he could make sense of Kiibo’s explanations, even if he did continue to ask.

Ouma smiled. Maybe it was a little exciting too, not knowing the answers.

Leaving the upper floors behind, the two of them quietly walked the front entrance of the academy. When they reached the front doors, Kiibo paused, his hands hovering an inch away from the door handles. It was eerie, standing in the open entryway in the middle of the night. But Ouma just stared expectantly, waiting for the inevitable vague question.

Finally, Kiibo sighed. “What if you’re right?”

“Then that means I was right and you were wrong and life moves on.”

“But what if it doesn’t? What if someone else dies?”

Ouma didn’t want to think about that. “Then it means someone else is dead. Didn’t you pay attention in robot school?”

Kiibo turned to look at him, his voice strained. “How can you be so calm about this?”

Calm, huh?

“It’s just life, Kiiboy. Everybody dies eventually.”

“Not like this.” Kiibo shook his head. “I don’t want to watch anyone else die like this. That... that’s what I’m trying to prevent.”

Such different approaches, and yet somehow or another they still wanted the same thing.

“Well then, let’s just hope I’m not right, shall we?”

Kiibo stared at him sadly, and all of a sudden Ouma felt like he wanted to run away.

“Yes. Let’s hope so.”

They walked the rest of the way back to the dorms in silence.

###### Day 8  
Morning

The scent of iron filled the gym as a heavy silence fell over the group. Ouma watched as Tojo and Shirogane swept the last of the glass shards into a pile by the water tank, the expressions on their faces stony and downcast.

“I’ve... gathered Hoshi’s body and belongings in one place,” Kiibo murmured. Ouma couldn’t help but notice the red droplets of water that still clung to Kiibo's armor. Tojo had suggested that he dry himself off, but he’d simply shaken his head and gone to collect the remnants of Hoshi’s body. Whether it was out of a sense of obligation or to prevent anyone else from having to touch the remains, Ouma couldn’t be sure. Kiibo hadn’t said much the entire time.

As the others discussed the current state of affairs, Ouma glanced over each of them, a knot forming in his stomach. It was happening again, just like with Amami and Akamatsu. Under one of these distraught faces was someone who had killed a classmate in cold blood. Someone who was willing to throw away the rest of their lives to get away with it...

Ouma scoffed, fake sadness seeping through his voice in a way that made his insides churn. “How could this happen? We... swore to each other didn’t we? We swore we’d never let the killing game start up again.” He wasn’t blind to the way his classmates’ faces twisted at his words. “So that was all just a lie! Apologize to Hoshi! He believed the killing game wouldn’t happen anymore!” Ouma knew that he was only adding salt to the wound. But at this point, they all needed to understand just how empty their words had been. How “cooperation” and “inaction” had led to nothing but a bloody repeat of the past. 

Or maybe he was simply just bitter at how much he had wanted to believe them. 

“Your disingenuous tears mark you as a liar right now...” Shinguji grumbled from a few feet away. The lack of sympathy in the anthropologist’s voice made Ouma shudder. Perhaps he would have to keep a closer eye on him.

Ouma placed an innocent smile on his face “Oh, you figured it out? You’ve got a pretty good eye there, Shinguji.” Shinguji merely narrowed his eyes and looked away.

When Monokuma appeared to present the Monokuma file, Ouma resumed his scan of the other students. It was fairly obvious that Hoshi had drowned. He didn’t need to pay attention to Monokuma’s prattling to know that much. But still, his body appearing right in the middle of the magic show? It was entirely too obvious, even if Ouma hadn’t been there to see it. That ruled out two possible options. But if Yumeno and Angie hadn’t been there to place the body, then who...

_“Hard at work in the gym are we? Now I see why Gonta had a hard time bringing you to his lab. You can get pretty scary when you’re serious.”_

_“So you were the one who sent Gonta after everyone. Are you perhaps up to something again, Ouma?”_

_“Aw, come on you can’t just ask me that. It’d spoil the surprise.”_

_“I was going to let your behavior slide, due to the circumstances, but if you are creating problems for the others, I will have to-”_

_“Oops, sorry, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got important places to be. Wouldn’t wanna keep my audience waiting, you know.”_

_“Stop right there. Our conversation is not over yet.”_

_“C’mon, Miss Maid, catch me if you can!”_

Ouma’s gaze froze. It was only a possibility, and yet... it would all make sense, wouldn’t it? The only thing he would need to know is why. Ouma ran through the previous night’s events in his mind one more time and felt his heart drop. Maybe if he’d noticed sooner... Though who was to say that Hoshi wasn’t already dead at that point? Maybe there was nothing that could have been done...

“I’m not going to investigate either. You’ll be fine if you’re short a person, and I doubt a child caregiver would be much help.”

Harukawa’s voice brought Ouma out of his thoughts just long enough for him to see her stalk out of the gym, deaf to Saihara’s protests. 

Interesting.

Ouma added another item to his list of things to investigate. Though it wasn’t like he was unaware of Harukawa’s secret. “Child Caregiver.” She could have at least had the decency to tell a better lie.

In the meantime though, the investigation wasn’t going to start moving on its own.

“Anyway, I think it’s pretty obvious who the culprit is.” Ouma placed the carefree smile back on his face. “Hoshi was murdered during a certain little magical girl’s show, right?”

The tension in the air thickened and Yumeno looked at him with fear in her eyes. Ouma almost felt sorry for her.

“Buuuuut... She’s so suspicious that it seems NOT suspicious.” Yumeno’s expression changed easily from fear to confusion with his words. “Then again,” he continued. “If she’s made herself look not suspicious, then maybe she actually IS suspicious!”

“Shut up! Yumeno would never do something like that!” Chabashira snapped. She really was too predictable, though at least it got the ball rolling.

Ouma shrugged, turning his attention back to the obvious red herring. “Yumeno, can you at least tell us the trick behind the Underwater Escape Act? If we know how the trick works, we can try to figure out how the culprit killed-”

“That’s not possible...” Yumeno stared at a particularly uninteresting spot on the floor. “There’s no trick to the Underwater Escape. Cuz it was my magic...”

Well... it was never going to be that easy, was it? Though Ouma still had to be impressed with Yumeno’s insistence on her magician shtick. She had no qualms with putting everyone else’s lives in danger (or even her own for that matter) as long as she maintained that desired image.

At least this mystery wasn’t going to be too boring.

As the group split up to investigate the different areas of the school, Ouma caught Kiibo’s gaze on him from out of the corner of his eye. Plastering a grin back onto his face, he waited for the robot to start complaining about using him as a battering ram (it WAS the easiest way to get things done, and Ouma was pretty certain that Kiibo wouldn’t hold it against him for very long). But instead, he was met with silence and a mournful look on Kiibo’s face.

_“What if you’re right?”_

_“Then that means I was right and you were wrong and life moves on.”_

_“But what if it doesn’t? What if someone else dies?”_

Ouma ripped his gaze away and marched toward the gym doors. He didn’t look back to see if the expression on Kiibo’s face had changed.

###### Day 8  
Night

“Do you really think someone as desperate to live as Tojo would give up so easily?” Ouma watched as all eyes in the room shifted his way, still high on adrenaline from Momota’s rousing speech. 

“Of course not. In fact, she probably still hasn’t given up, even now.” Tojo’s gaze was cold as he pressed on. “She was hoping that learning the truth would make one of us volunteer to die in her place.”

“What?!”

The sudden pain in Kiibo’s voice nearly made Ouma drop his composure. But he forced himself to keep talking, the words bitter on his tongue.

“But Monokuma would never allow the blackened to escape punishment, so maybe... she wanted everyone to rebel, so she could use that as cover to escape on her own.” A knowing smile slid onto his lips. “How about it, Tojo? Am I close?”

Tojo’s gaze was steady, but it bore holes into him. “You... are the most detestable cretin I have ever met. You knew exactly what I would attempt, yet you allowed me to explain anyway.”

Ouma felt his smile widen as the voices around him clamored in shock. She was right, on more fronts than one. Although, somewhere at the back of his mind, he knew that he was hoping he’d been wrong. That he hadn’t been able to read exactly what she was planning, laid out in front of him like a rule book. But in the end, Ouma knew better. He’d used those same fake tears and honeyed words too many times himself to be so easily fooled.

A detestable cretin... Yet she was the one who had stooped to murder, not him. And all for what? For people she barely even knew? People she still wanted to save, even if she had such little chance of success? Willing to keep on running... to throw herself away... all for that little glimmer of hope that waited for her at the end of the tunnel...

As the last of Tojo’s screams echoed in his brain, Ouma felt something click into place.

“She tried to escape until the very end... Running away to live... might not be a bad idea.”

As the group filed away into the elevator, he thought he heard Momota mumble something about survival, but he wasn’t paying attention.

A plan was beginning to form in his mind.

-

“Now, now, it won’t take that long, so just listen to what I have to say.”

The night air fell still as Ouma watched the eyes of his classmates turn to him for a second time within the hour. Their gazes were heavy with exhaustion, both from the class trial and what had followed after. But, despite his heart hammering rapidly in his chest, Ouma knew that he had to take a chance.

“Everyone seems to be treating me like some kinda compulsive liar... But that’s ridiculous! There’s a way worse liar than me in our group!”

“A liar worse than you?” There was an edge to Saihara’s voice that had only gotten stronger since Akamatsu’s death. Ouma decided he couldn’t worry about that right now.

His smile widened. “... I’m talking about Harukawa.”

“What?” Harukawa’s eyes were on him immediately.

Ouma could feel his heart rate increasing.

“What do you mean Harukawa’s a liar?” Momota pressed.

“She admitted it during the class trial, remember?” Ouma tried his best to keep his voice even. “Hoshi wanted her to show him his motive video cuz he was looking for a reason to live. But that wasn’t the whole story. Hoshi was blackmailing you, wasn’t he, Harukawa?”

Ouma saw Harukawa stiffen, and yet she didn’t make an attempt to say anything in her defense. Ouma decided to continue.

“Hoshi just so happened to discover Harukawa’s true identity. That’s why she didn’t want us to know she met up with him. She wanted to keep her true identity a secret.”

“Why you... What shit are you making up now? Harukawa’s true identity?”

Looking past Momota, Ouma could see the blood in Harukawa’s eyes. He knew he was in danger, but there was no turning back now.

“Nishishi~ I’ve known Harukawa’s identity this whole time-”

He didn’t get a chance to finish.

Harukawa was on him in an instant, one hand wrapped around his throat as she lifted him inches off the ground. Ouma choked, flinching as her fingernails dug into the skin of his neck. Her eyes were filled with nothing but murder.

Just as he’d expected.

“Y-You know... this is an interesting... turn of events.” 

It hurt to speak. It hurt to even breathe, given how tightly she was constricting his windpipe. But still, Ouma was on a mission, and he’d be damned if he didn’t see things through to the end. 

“Yeah... you can probably... snap my neck like a twig right now... But that’s... not your style... You’d rather... kill from the shadows...”

Harukawa’s grip on him tightened, but she was too late. Ouma grinned, staring right back into a pair of eyes that now wanted him dead. “Right... Miss Ultimate Assassin?”

Harukawa didn’t say a word. But Ouma thought he saw something shift in her expression before he was thrown hard against the concrete and his vision went dark.

###### Day 8  
Night (cont.)

*knock knock knock*

It was well past midnight when Kiibo awoke to a loud knocking on his bedroom door, the dark corners of his room barely illuminated by the soft glow from around his collar.

At first, he assumed he’d still been dreaming, the ever-present image of a green room and a metal door drifting in and out of his mind. But when the knocking continued for another minute without ceasing, he realized that he was, in fact, very much awake.

Groaning, Kiibo unplugged his charging cable from a port on the wall, making a quick check of his system to see how much of his energy had been restored. Ten percent. Which equaled just about an hour that he’d been asleep. And not all that long from the... well... incident by the fountain.

Kiibo suddenly had a bad feeling about this and he hopped off his bed, making his way to the door as fast as he could manage.

When he opened it, he found the gears in his brain stutter to a halt.

“Oh! Kiiboy! There you are. I was starting to think you’d run out of batteries.”

“Ouma?”

The shorter boy raised an eyebrow. “Uh, hello? Anyone in there? I know my good looks have been kinda ruined, but it’s not like I died, you know.”

It took Kiibo a moment to process what he was looking at. Ouma appeared just as he always was, wry smile and everything. Except now there was a large gash on his forehead, hastily covered up with what appeared to be two small bandages. 

A hand waving in front of his face snapped Kiibo back to his senses.

“Earth to Kiiboy. Did you short circuit or something?”

If Ouma was at all bothered by the state of his forehead, he definitely wasn’t showing it.

Kiibo shook his head. “What are you doing here?”

Ouma smiled, seemingly pleased to have finally Kiibo’s attention. “Visiting you, obviously. Why else would I knock on your door at two in the morning? Now let me in before I freeze to death out here.”

By the time Kiibo registered Ouma pushing himself into the room, the other boy had already closed the door shut behind them.

“Man, somebody’s really gotta show you how to decorate. This place barely looks like it’s been slept in.” Ouma glanced around at the barren walls of Kiibo’s bedroom, a carefree smile still on his face.

“I... I do not sleep the same way that most humans do... so I suppose that would be obvious.” Kiibo found himself replying without much thought. It wasn’t until Ouma flopped down on his bed that things finally clicked into place.

“Ouma... why are you here?”

Ouma sat back up to look at Kiibo, who was still standing awkwardly by the door. 

“I thought I told you. Or did your robot brain forget what I said already?”

“No, not that. I mean... What happened to you earlier? After Harukawa...” The series of events flashed briefly through Kiibo’s memory and he suppressed a shudder. Ouma had temporarily passed out after Harukawa had thrown him against the fountain, her actions and the sudden reveal of her talent setting the entire group into a state of chaos. Kiibo had attempted to get to Ouma as soon as he could, but between the overall panic and Harukawa’s hasty escape, his attention had been drawn away for a little too long. By the time he managed to make his way to the fountain, Ouma had mysteriously disappeared. “I thought that maybe you’d gotten a concussion... or possibly worse,” he continued, trying to search Ouma’s gaze for answers, but finding nothing. “Saihara said he saw you sneak off and that you’d probably gone back to your room but... what actually happened after you disappeared?”

Ouma shrugged, attempting to run a hand through his hair before flinching and apparently deciding otherwise. “Harukawa’s pretty nasty, isn’t she?” he replied. “I mean, shouldn’t you at least apologize after you try to strangle someone? It’s pretty rude, if you ask me.”

Kiibo sighed. One of these days he was going to have to learn not to expect a straight answer. “You were the one who revealed her talent,” he pointed out. Harukawa’s assassin talent still sat heavily at back of his mind. But she had run off immediately to lock herself in her room, so Kiibo supposed that there wasn’t much else he could do at the moment but worry.

Ouma, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered, as he shot Kiibo a rather disappointed pout. “You’re such a heartless robot, Kiiboy! You could at least feel a little bit sorry for me. I mean, look! I probably DO have a concussion and I had to clean up this entire mess all by myself!” Kiibo winced as Ouma waved a hand at his shoddily-patched-up injury.

“I have been concerned about that. I wasn’t sure how you managed to run off so quickly, considering Harukawa’s use of force.”

Ouma shrugged again, lightly picking at the bandages on his forehead. “People have always said that I have a thick skull. Guess they were right.” Kiibo must not have looked convinced because he quickly continued, “Besides, I figured it was a good idea to get out of there before Harukawa decided to beat me up any more. So I left, tended to my wounds, and now I’m here. Problem solved.”

“That’s- Hold on. Not problem solved.” Kiibo took several steps toward his bed as Ouma attempted to lie back down.

Ouma sat up again and frowned. “Now what? I’m tired and I don’t feel like giving your robo-brain a detailed explanation.”

Kiibo sighed, deciding to ignore Ouma’s whining for the time being and instead went to rummage around in one of the drawers of his desk. Behind him, he heard the sheets of his bed rustle as Ouma made an attempt to see what he was doing. He felt an odd tinge of pride at having so easily drawn his curiosity. Finally, after a bit of searching, Kiibo found what he was looking for and came to sit next to Ouma on the bed.

Ouma flinched as soon as he got close, and Kiibo had to remind himself of the situation they were in. But then again, Ouma was the one who had invited himself inside in the first place, so Kiibo wasn’t quite sure what the problem was. He waited until Ouma had visibly relaxed before fully plopping down and holding out his hand.

“Here.”

Ouma stared blankly at him. “What is it?”

“It’s gauze,” Kiibo explained. “I picked it up from a medical kit in the warehouse in case of an emergency. It should help your injury better than those bandages will.”

Ouma continued to stare. “I don’t really think that stuff’s gonna stick to my head.”

“It won’t. You’re supposed to wrap it around a couple of times... at least, I think. I tried to look for some tape to stick it down with, but for some reason, the warehouse didn’t seem to have any.”

“... And this is supposed to stop my brains from leaking out?”

“Supposedly.”

“Do they teach you this kinda stuff in robot school too?”

“Th... There is no such thing as robot school!” Kiibo sputtered. “I go to school normally, just like the rest of you!”

Ouma laughed at that, his snickers shaking the bed beneath them. As Kiibo watched, he felt a small smile tug at his lips despite his previous annoyance. Somehow, the tension that had filled his body ever since the trial seemed to melt away, all because of a purple-eyed menace sitting on his bed and bickering with him like nothing else in the world mattered. Like there was still something normal that could anchor Kiibo to the ground, no matter how much the killing game threatened to rip him away.

“Pff. What are you smiling at? Did you finally grow a sense of humor?”

Kiibo blinked, realizing that Ouma was staring at him, amusement still dancing in his eyes. Kiibo could feel his face beginning to heat up.

“It... It’s nothing. Just... here.” Kiibo thrust the ball of gauze into Ouma’s hands before he could convince himself to do otherwise.

Ouma stared at the object for a moment before he began to unravel it with fervor. “I still don’t think this is gonna do me any good. But I’ll give it a try since you’re so insistent.”

Kiibo felt the rapid pounding in his chest settle back down. “It’s better than you dripping blood all over my bedroom. How did you manage to walk with an injury like that?”

Ouma snickered again. “You might not know this about me, Kiiboy, but I’ve got a pretty strong tolerance to blood loss. It’s gonna take more than this to keep me knocked out.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised,” Kiibo replied, watching as Ouma attempted to navigate the bandaging around his hair. “I suppose I should be thankful that you decided to wake me up. I was worried about whether you were alright, but since you ran off, I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do.”

“Sheesh. You need to stop worrying about me all the time. I can handle myself, you know.” For some reason, Ouma’s hands had stopped moving.

Kiibo sighed. “You say that after you were almost strangled to death.”

“Well, yeah. That’s why I’m here.”

“Because you know I won’t try to strangle you?”

“No- Well, ok maybe that too. But I figured if Harukawa decides to off me in the middle of the night, I’ll be safer if I’m not in my own room.”

Kiibo stared at him, reality slowly making its way back into his train of thought. “I... I doubt she would do something like that.”

Ouma shrugged. “I dunno. If she’d squeezed just a little bit harder, we might not be having this conversation.”

“You are considerably calm if that’s true.”

“Who knows? Maybe I was lying- Ah shit...”

Ouma grimaced and lifted an arm that had somehow become completely entangled in gauze.

Kiibo suppressed a chuckle. “Here, just let me do it.”

He reached out to take the gauze from Ouma’s grasp, but his hand immediately stopped short. Ouma had turned to look at him, his eyes wide beneath the shadow of his hair and the blood caked to his skin. For some reason, it was enough for doubt to come creeping into Kiibo’s mind.

“Er, I mean...” he stammered, his brain desperately trying to save the situation. “I don’t think you’re doing it correctly, um... I think if you try to-”

“Here.”

Kiibo’s eyes snapped back to meet Ouma’s, but the the other boy’s gaze was already glued to a spot somewhere on the floor. He had one hand outstretched, the gauze sitting in a mangled lump on his palm. Kiibo stared at it, questioning how Ouma had managed to untangled himself so quickly, but only vaguely concerned with whatever the answer was.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing? You’re the one who went to robot medicine school, not me. You figure this thing out.”

Gently, Kiibo retrieved the gauze and smoothed it over between his fingertips. The small wad felt oddly heavy in his hands.

“Are... are you sure? I thought that maybe you-”

“Come on, Kiiboy, get with the program.” Ouma rolled his eyes, though his gaze was still glued to the floor. “You said to let you do it, right? So hurry up before I fall asleep.”

If there was anything in particular that had caused the change of heart, asking questions apparently wasn’t the way to find out. Kiibo decided that he’d just have to live without an explanation.

After taking a deep breath and completely unwinding the gauze, Kiibo shifted his position on the bed, scooting over so that he was sitting directly behind Ouma. And then, with extra care to keep his hands from shaking, he reached out to wrap the bandage around Ouma’s head.

It didn’t take long for Kiibo to complete his handiwork, just a few loops around Ouma’s forehead, making sure to leave room for the odd way that his hair flared out at the sides, and then a small knot tied in the back, just tight enough to properly compress the injury. But it wasn’t the action itself that seemed to burn its way into Kiibo’s memory. Seated as they were, Kiibo was so close that he could see every little rise and fall of Ouma’s shoulders, his back held just a little bit straighter than usual and the pale skin of his neck peeking out from above his over-sized scarf. Ouma’s dark hair slipped softly through his fingers as he wound the bandaging, lifting the strands away from Ouma’s ears and forehead as carefully as he could. In the quiet darkness, he could hear the gentle sounds of Ouma’s breathing, and without even realizing it, he began to feel the reality of the killing game all but slip away... until the only thing he cared about was comfortable presence of the person sitting in front of him.

And then, just as quickly as it had come, the stillness disappeared and Ouma turned around to face him with a grin. 

“I gotta say, that went better than I expected. I guess you really are good for something, Kiiboy.”

Kiibo huffed, but there was no fire behind his words. “I don’t want to hear that from you. I wasn’t aware that humans were so incapable at basic medical practices.”

“Hey!” Ouma pouted. “Not all of us are walking, talking encyclopedias. Maybe we just have better things to do.”

“Better things like what?”

“Secrets, chaos, complete and utter world domination.”

“Really? Well you’re not going to get very far if you can’t patch up your own injuries.”

“It’s ok, that’s what I have you for.”

“I am not tending to you every time you get yourself into trouble, Ouma.”

“Awww. Then you’re just gonna let me die? Gonna let me bleed all over the floor cause you’re such a heartless robot?”

Kiibo chucked the leftover gauze at Ouma, who caught it with a snicker. 

“You don’t get to call me heartless after I let you hide in my room,” he grumbled.

Ouma snickered and tossed the gauze in the direction of Kiibo’s desk, but it fell short and landed in a small heap on the floor. Kiibo didn’t really have the energy to get up and move it. 

Beside him, Ouma finally fell back to lie on his bed.

“You know, I’m actually surprised you haven’t kicked me out already,” he said with a yawn. “Thought I’d be a goner at least fifteen minutes ago.”

Kiibo frowned at him. “Why would I kick you out?”

“You’re not worried I’m gonna kill you in your sleep?”

Despite their situation, Kiibo realized that such a possibility hadn’t actually crossed his mind. In all technicality, Ouma had a point. In fact, if he was being logical, Kiibo probably shouldn’t have let Ouma into his room to begin with. But for some reason, despite the clear danger he could be putting himself in should he allow Ouma to stay, Kiibo couldn’t find it in himself to feel afraid.

“As much as you seem to dislike me, I highly doubt you would kill without a better motive,” he reasoned. “Besides, due to the nature of your constant pestering, I think you would fall under suspicion far too easily, even if you did have a reason to target me.” He turned to look at Ouma as best he could. “So in short, no I’m not worried.”

There was a moment where Ouma seemed unable to do anything but stare at him, but eventually he burst out into laughter again.

“Are... Are you for real, Kiiboy? That was the most serious reasoning I’ve ever heard in my life!”

Kiibo felt his face heat up again. “What else did you expect me to say?”

“No, Ouma, you’re my friend!” Ouma adopted a high-pitched mocking tone that sounded suspiciously like Shirogane. Kiibo had to put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing. “I believe in you! You’re too nice to ever kill anyone!”

“You-” Kiibo snorted, still trying to suppress his laughter. “You are the last person that the word ‘nice’ should ever be applied to.”

Ouma grinned up at him from his place on the bed, as if that assessment was something to be proud of. “Please, Kiiboy. I’m the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

“That is most definitely a lie.”

“Ooh, you catch on fast! I’m so proud!”

Kiibo shook his head, already pulling out his charging cable. 

“But still.” Ouma shifted, pillowing his arms beneath his head. “I guess you do make a good point. And it’s not like I’d get anything out of killing you either way.”

“I sincerely hope it stays like that.”

As Ouma continued to chuckle at him, Kiibo settled into a spot on the floor, close enough to the outlet that he could charge comfortably, but not too far from the bed either, just in case Ouma needed to wake him in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sure why he particularly cared, but he supposed it was only polite, considering Ouma’s injury.

From the bed, Ouma eyed him with interest, shifting again so that he could watch without having to strain his neck. 

“So, does this mean I actually get to see what it looks like when you sleep?”

“Unfortunately, yes, since you woke me up in the middle of charging.” Kiibo made another check of his battery, just to be sure. Seven percent. About what he expected. 

Ouma yawned. “You can’t just charge whenever you want?”

“I suppose. But it’s more efficient if I wait until I’m running low on energy,” Kiibo explained. “If I don’t finish now, I won’t be able to function at all tomorrow.” He briefly wondered what tomorrow would even be like before waving that thought away.

Ouma gave a hum of acknowledgment, but apparently didn’t see a need to question it further, so Kiibo went back to what he was doing. As he plugged his cable back into the wall, it dawned on him that he’d never let anyone but the professor observe him while in charging mode. It was roughly similar to a human’s state of sleep, but he would still be rather vulnerable. Not that this would be a good thing to mention to Ouma, killing intent or not.

When Kiibo turned back around, he found that Ouma’s eyes were still on him.

“...What?” He felt his circuits heat up for what was possibly the third or fourth time that night.

Ouma smiled, decidedly softer than usual, but Kiibo chalked it up him simply being tired. “Nothing. Watching you is interesting.”

Kiibo frowned, not sure if this was a good or a bad thing. “Er... alright. But don’t stare at me for too long. You should sleep as well.”

Ouma lazily waved a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Something told Kiibo that this wasn’t really a genuine agreement, but he didn’t have enough energy to put up a fight about it. Instead, he just shrugged, settling into a comfortable position. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow then.... Good night, Ouma.”

There came another hum from the bed. “Mm. Night, Kiiboy.”

A hush fell over them, and Kiibo wondered if Ouma had already fallen asleep. He moved to switch himself into sleep mode as well when a thought drifted into his mind.

“Ouma?”

“Hm?”

Kiibo smiled. “You finally answered my question.”

“...What question?”

“I... asked you once before if you trusted me.” Kiibo felt a warmth gathering in his chest. “I suppose in a way, you’ve finally given me an answer.”

There was a stretch of silence before Ouma let out a sigh.

“Go to sleep, Kiiboy.”

When the rustling from his bed finally subsided, Kiibo decided that he might as well take Ouma’s advice. Tomorrow was going to be a chaotic day, to say the least. But as Kiibo switched himself into sleep mode, it was with a sense of peace that he hadn’t felt since before the killing game had begun. For now, the chaos would have to wait.

###### Day 8  
Night (cont.)

Kiibo’s room was quiet, with nothing but the soft sounds of breathing to fill the stillness of the night. The light from Kiibo’s collar had dimmed only a little, and Ouma, who remained wide awake long after Kiibo had dozed off, found himself idly tracing the lines on the robot’s sleeping face.

It was calm. Peaceful even. The way Kiibo was now, there would be nothing to stop Ouma from quietly ripping apart his wires, leaving nothing but a broken pile of metal for someone to find the next morning.

And yet, all he did was watch, his eyes following the soft rise and fall of Kiibo’s chest. A tired part of him wondered if it was even necessary for Kiibo to breathe in the first place. He had never really gotten the chance to ask.

Slowly, taking extra care to make as little noise as possible, Ouma got up from his place on the bed. His body protested at the action, wanting nothing more than to curl up and pass out for the rest of the night. And maybe if their situation had been a little different, he might have done exactly that. But their situation wasn’t different. And Ouma still had things to take care of.

He felt a little guilty, leaving without saying anything. Kiibo would likely be worried in the morning. Actually, Ouma was almost certain that he would be. A small smile pulled at his lips as he pictured the robot running around frantically, trying to figure out what had become of him. He really did worry too much for his own good.

_“I... asked you once if you trusted me. I suppose in a way, you’ve finally given me an answer.”_

The smile fell from Ouma’s face and something in his chest suddenly felt tight. If things had come off that way, it certainly hadn’t been his intention. Although... what had his intention even been in the first place? He still stood by the decision to vacate his own room, at least for a little while. As far as he knew, he was the only one in the group with the ability to lock-pick, but one could never be too sure. And after seeing the murder in Harukawa’s eyes and feeling his forehead smack against the side of the fountain... before he knew it, he’d ended up at Kiibo’s doorstep, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe he knew that Kiibo was the only one who was likely to let him in, especially after the display he had put on earlier. Or maybe... maybe it was something else entirely.

Ouma’s hand drifted to the gauze around his forehead. There wasn’t blood dribbling down his face anymore, so at least one good thing had come out of all this. A voice at the back of his head told him that it was more than just the one thing and he violently pushed it aside. This was getting dangerous. Although... he had never been one to back away from danger before, right?

As Ouma made his way to the front door, his eyes shifted toward Kiibo sleeping peacefully by the side of the bed and the tightness in his chest grew stronger.

No. There was only so much that he was willing to risk. Not when everything he had planned for could fall apart so easily.

Ouma closed the door softly behind him and pulled a permanent marker from his pocket.

It was time to set things into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hardest part of writing this fic is trying to balance in-canon scenes with original scenes, while trying not to make things jump around too much. There's a lot of subtext that I want to point to and a lot of little relationships that I want to touch on (like Kiibo and Iruma), as I think they ultimately build on Kiibo and Ouma's growth, both individually and towards each other. Things will definitely start to change more as the plot progresses though, so I hope that'll be something to look forward to!
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and since I'm posting this on the 1st, Happy New Year as well!


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